BEETHOVEN 200 YEARS AGO TODAY: Thursday, December 14, 1820

Archduke Rudolph remains in Troppau today, handing out the sacrament of confirmation to the seemingly endless stream of youngsters. He also takes time out to consecrate the new church bells for the farmers of Gilschwitz (now Kylešovice), south of Troppau. This news is according to the Troppau Zeitung of December 18, as reported in the Wiener Zeitung of December 22.

This Church of St. Jan of Nepomuk was then brand new, construction having been begun in 1816. The church was completed on June 17, 1818, and the old chapel that had become far too small was demolished. The church was consecrated a year later on May 1, 1819. The main altar was probably built by the Troppau sculptor Johann Nitsche, by assembling pieces of several different altars from other churches. The altarpiece (like the altar, probably from the abolished Franciscan Church of St. Barbara) was by painter Jan Lukáš Kracker. The organ was not added until 1829.

The bells in question were cast by the Olmütz bell-ringer František Stanke. In 1938, Kylešovice was seized by Germany as part of the Sudetenland. In 1942, the bells of the church were all requisitioned by the Nazis and used as scrap metal, except for the death knell. The church itself was hit by a bomb on April 22, 1945 and severely damaged: the tower was hit, which destroyed the roof and broke through the vault over the nave, and the annex in front of the facade was destroyed. The church was demolished in 1946 and replaced.