Návsí

Návsí

Taking a train from Český Těšín or Třinec to Žilina, the last Protestant toleration church to be found is the one in Návsí u Jablunkova (386 metres above sea level; 3,789 inhabitants), right before the Slovak border. The local congregation was established in 1791 although the people in the Těšín princedom started professing an Augsburg faith as early as in the 16th century and all churches were Protestant.

In time of the counter-Reformation, the Protestants in the Jablunkovsko region met in woods of the Beskydy mountains, holding their secret worship in Dolní Lomná in the place called Kostelky where you can find a modest memorial now.

Apart from a wooden church, a wooden building of a Protestant school was built and a bricked rectory started to be constructed, too. In 1808, the original school building was replaced by a bricked one which became public in 1869. Since the 1990s, it has been used as a training and recreational centre for the general public. This cultural monument is called The congregation House of Emaus nowadays, offering 20 beds in 5 rooms and two common rooms.

The wooden church was replaced by the present one in 1820 and its tower annexed to it in 1849. The one nave Empire church has a capacity of 600 people (including those on the galleries), its speciality is the restored mechanical tower clock from 1891, as well as three bells, already the fourth set of bells in this church, the former ones were being confiscated for military purpose in the past. The original ground floor rectory was rebuilt into two-storey one on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the congregation’s foundation. In the 1990s, it was reconstructed thoroughly and a new part built up to provide another flat for a pastor.

In 1841, the congregation set up a Protestant cemetery where some eminent pastors are buried, for example Jan Winkler, a revivalist and writer, or Senior František Michejda who was a founder and co-founder of several associations and organizations dedicated to improving social conditions, and an editor of a number of ecclesiastical and professional magazines which he issued in the Návsí rectory. An evidence of his importance is a fact that he was visited by President T. G. Masaryk.

In the beginning, the church in Návsí was used by the Protestants from fifteen villages situated in the Jablunkovsko region. Eventually, however, the congregation established three other Protestant communities that became independent. Owing to a new Czech-Polish border set after World War I, three villages behind the Jablunkovský Pass became Polish, and in 1930 the local Protestants founded their own congregation and built their new church in Istebná.

In 1950, the Hrádek congregation gained independence. In 2009 the congregation in Písek u Jablunkova was established and the following year, their new church, an architecturally very interesting building, was finished. The Návsí congregation is a part of the Silesian Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession and works with people of all ages, offering leisure activities for children and young people.