Church of Saint Michael the Archangel ( cs, Kostel svatého Michala) is a church in

Znojmo Znojmo (; german: Znaim) is a town in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 33,000 inhabitants. Znojmo is the historical and cultural centre of southwestern Moravia and the second most populated town in the South Moravian R ...

in the

South Moravian Region The South Moravian Region ( cs, Jihomoravský kraj; , ; sk, Juhomoravský kraj) is an administrative unit () of the Czech Republic, located in the south-western part of its historical region of Moravia (an exception is Jobova Lhota which trad ...

of the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

History

The first written mention of the church is from 1226. The original church was probably built in the 12th century for the newcomers who were settling around

Znojmo Castle Znojmo Castle is a castle in the city of Znojmo, a historic city in Moravia, Czech Republic. History The Znojmo Castle was initially a wooden structure built by the Přemyslid Bretislaus I, Duke of Bohemia, and completed around 1080. The struc ...

. It is the second most significant church in the town after Church of Saint Nicholas. The church was built at the highest point in Znojmo and consecrated to

Saint Michael the Archangel Michael (; he, מִיכָאֵל, lit=Who is like El od, translit=Mīḵāʾēl; el, Μιχαήλ, translit=Mikhaḗl; la, Michahel; ar, ميخائيل ، مِيكَالَ ، ميكائيل, translit=Mīkāʾīl, Mīkāl, Mīkhāʾīl), a ...

which suggest that it could have replaced an ancient

pagan Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. ...

worship place. The church was built in the Romanesque style and completely rebuilt in the late Gothic style in 1508. In the 16th century it came under the power of the Lutheran preachers, at that time the church tower collapsed for the first time (1581). The

Jesuits The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

took over the ravaged place in 1624 and proceeded to rebuild it. The church tower collapsed for the second time in 1642 and was not to be rebuilt again as part of the church structure. In 1694 a new

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell tower ...

was constructed separately from the church (the so-called ''campanile'').

References

{{coord, 48, 51, 30, N, 16, 2, 50, E, region:CZ, display=title Churches in Znojmo