Kostel svatých Petra a Pavla (Prachatice II) Church

Between Prachatice and Staré Prachatice, near the cemetery, stands the Church of Saints Peter and Paul. It is older than the town itself and ranks among the oldest buildings from the Romanesque period in southern and western Bohemia. Its significance is also demonstrated by the fact that the Prachatice pilgrimage is celebrated on the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, rather than on the feast of Saint James, to whom the parish church in the town is dedicated.

According to archaeological findings, the original Romanesque church was probably built in the eleventh or twelfth century. At that time, only a toll station lay in the Prachatice basin, situated on a trade route called the Golden Path. The church was most likely founded by the Vyšehrad chapter. This is suggested by the matching dates of dedication of the Prachatice church and the Vyšehrad church. In Staré Prachatice, urban settlement had been growing since the early Middle Ages, but it was moved south in the fourteenth century to the site of present-day Prachatice. Townspeople would therefore have had to leave the safety of the walls to travel to the church. For this reason, they built a new Church of Saint James the Great in the town, and the older sanctuary faded into the background.

From the original chapel, a section of ashlar stonework has survived, complete with a small window in the northern wall. In the thirteenth century, the church was enlarged. The porch and tower were added only in the sixteenth century. Baroque modifications took place in sixteen eighty-seven, seventeen fifty-three, and seventeen seventy-one. The tower originally received a Baroque dome; the current pyramidal roof dates from eighteen ninety. Today it is a single-nave early Gothic structure with a rectangular closed chancel and a sacristy on the northern side. The tower stands off-axis on the western façade, the porch is on the northern side of the nave, and on the southern side there is a sealed semicircular portal. Inside, Romanesque foundations meet with Gothic vaulting in the crypt and a Baroque ceiling.

The cemetery by the church was established before fifteen sixty-two. From fifteen eighty-seven, the town cemetery was moved here from the Church of Saint James, with further expansions in nineteen nine and nineteen twenty-nine. Along one wall of the nave stand up to two dozen tombstones of Prachatice townspeople and owners of the fortified house in Bělč. These people probably contributed to the repair of the church.

In the chancel, a wall painting of the Last Judgment dating from after fifteen oh-one was discovered. An angel with the Virgin Mary wait at the gates of heaven, which are guarded by Saint Peter, who receives souls into heaven. On the left side is hell with a winged Lucifer, three devils, and sinners who represent drunkenness, usury, and lust. In the center, an angel shows the resurrected the way to heaven or to hell. Above it all, God watches, though his figure has not yet been fully uncovered. Further medieval paintings were revealed by restorers between nineteen eighty and nineteen eighty-one.