Telecí can be found in a protected landscape area of the Žďár Hills near Polička. The municipality lies in a valley which is 6 kilometres long, at an altitude of 578 metres above sea level. There live about 400 permanent inhabitants.
Telecí was probably founded by the colonists who were invited here to protect a royal town of Polička and at that time very important Trstenice (it used to be called “Royal“) land trail. In the middle of the forests a settlement was founded and in 1403 it was already mentioned as a congregation settlement.
The inhabitants of east Bohemia mostly belonged to the Utraquist church or to the Unity of Brethren which had a seat in Litomyšl. During the Thirty Years’ War and later in a period of a forced recatholization, many Protestant families were hiding in the forests of the Czech-Bohemian Highlands. Special buildings-courts, closed from all four sides without front windows were built to provide security during the gatherings. In Telecí there are some folk architecture buildings which are the protected sites, for example court number 16.
The Church of St. Mary Magdalena has a special story. At the beginning, this Gothic church from the 14th century belonged to still undivided church; after the Hussite wars the worship of the Utraquist church took place here and in a post-White-Mountain period it was recatholized. The church is surrounded by a wall and by loopholes and has a belfry from the 16th century which was a part of the defense system of that time.
In Telecí they have a very valuable tree – a singing lime tree which is called Lukás’lime. Its age is estimated to be 700 years, its height is 25 metres and its circuit is almost 12 metres. According to a legend, a member of the Czech Brethren was staying here and singing psalms. It sounded as if the lime itself was singing…
After the declaration of the Toleration Patent the Protestants in Telecí and its surroundings immediately professed their Helvetian confession – already in November 1781 that was 92 families. When in 1782 a permission to establish a congregation was granted, at that time they already had a place for a construction of a house of prayer. It is said that they chose a field where the flax was in blossom. Next day, women pulled the flax out and within a short time in the autumn 1873 a stone house of prayer surrounded by a wall already stood on that place. A cemetery was established behind the house of prayer. A rectory was being built simultaneously; a congregation hall was added as late as in the year 1931.
In the following years, the house of prayer which has still been keeping its toleration character, was not sufficient anymore. Finally, the construction of a new church was not realized; a Neo-Renaissance front and a wide square tower were added on the side facing the valley. The additional construction was finished in 1890. Thanks to broad-minded minister Josef Martínek, the congregation in Telecí also looked after the orphanage for boys which was opened in the 1880s.
During the following years the Telecí congregation, since 1918 the ECCB congregation, was living and working in peace. The Second World War however interrupted the calm period. The congregation members including its minister Otokar Kadlec and his wife joined the revolt activities.
The communist regime period did not bring peace, either. Informal meetings of the ministers were monitored by secret police.During recent years the rectory underwent an extensive reconstruction. In 1995 the Telecí congregation got its new preaching station, a former congregation in Pustá Rybná. The local worship take place in a small church from the 1990s.