Střítež nad Bečvou - Rožnov pod Radhoštěm

Střítež nad Bečvou - Rožnov pod Radhoštěm

Střítež nad Bečvou, occupying the left bank of the Rožnov Bečva river, is situated at the border of the Vsetín Upland. Further eastward, the protected landscape area of the Beskydy Mountains starts. The first records about the village date back to 1376 when it was a part of the Rožnov domain.

Long time ago, Střítež was a centre of the Czech Brethren congregation. After the Toleration Patent was issued, the Protestants from Střítež belonged to the congregation in Velká (Hrubá) Lhota, established in 1782. Later it was not clear which of these two places to choose as the congregation centre (there was an original toleration house of prayer in Velká Lhota) so in 1872 the congregation was split into the congregations of Velká Lhota and Střítěž. The Střítež congregation was established on the 7th of August, 1872. Local believers, however, had started building their church much earlier.

The foundation stone was laid on the 29th of June, 1868, and a Neo-Romanesque church with a high tower visible from afar was opened eight years later. Its spacious nave has two side galleries and a choir with an organ. The pulpit with a double staircase is in the apse. In front of it, there is Lord’s table. The church, decorated with rich carving ornaments, was not restored until the 1990s when it was rebuilt according to a Prague architect Jiří Veselý‘s architectural design.

The year of 2005 brough great moments for the church in Střítež when a concert presenting a reconstructed original Baroque organ, probably from 1780, was held here. A year earlier, in 2004, the organ was recognized as a state cultural monument.

The Střítež congregation has had its preaching station in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm since 1924. The unique landmark of this town is its Wallachian Museum in Nature, founded in 1925, one of the oldest and biggest in our country. It is a well-preserved specimen of a typical, already extinct life in Wallachia. A replica of an original toleration house of prayer in Huslenky, dating back to 1782–1786, was placed in the museum in 2009.

The wooden church of the preaching station stands right next to the Wallachian Museum in Nature. When constructing it, its architect Bohumil Bareš took an advantage of this fact to built the church in a purely Wallachian style. The little church with its late Baroque small organ, moved here from the church in Rybníky, was opened in 1953 and has been used without any large repairs up to this day.