Be sure to make a nature stop before you get to Pustá Rybná.
Here’s downtown Pustá Rybná. There’s a pub and co-op grocery. But they’re not open. And the churches are locked.
If you have to go, it’s either behind a tree or drive two miles to Telecí. We did both.
OK, now we can visit the Pustá Rybná churches. They have witnessed Teply family vital events for 200 years.
- St. Bartholomew Catholic Church from 1650s until 1780s
- The Evangelical Protestant Church from 1780s until the 1860s
Our church key luck ran out. Jan made some calls, but we couldn’t get the key to either of the churches.
St. Bartholomew Catholic Church
St. Bartholomew, the Apostle, daughter church of the Catholic parish of Borová
Filiální kostel sv. Bartoloměje, apoštola, Římskokatolická farnost Borová
St. Bartholomew Catholic Church is just off the main square. It’s a daughter church of St. Margaret’s in Borová
The village of Borová has less than a thousand inhabitants and the village of Oldřiš has approximately sixty-five inhabitants. Of these, the regular number of visitors to Sunday services is about forty-one believers. It should be noted that especially the village of Borová is strongly represented by the Protestant Confession. In the village there is a Protestant parish and a church.
In other villages or settlements there are no regular religious services, only pilgrimages and, in the case of the village of Pustá Rybná, also in memory of All the faithful deceased.
Borová Catholic church web site, 2019
Evangelical Protestant Church
Parish congregation of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren in Telecí
Farní sbor českobratrské cirkve evangelické v Telecí
The Pustá Rybná Protestant Church was founded in the late 1780s. It’s a daughter church to the one in Telecí.
The steeple was added later, as steeples weren’t allowed on protestant churches. Likewise, the road on the near side of the fence didn’t exist, because the church door couldn’t face the road. The main road is on the far side of the fall-color tree in the background.
Cemetery – Catholic and Protestant
It’s a shared cemetery, located adjacent to the Catholic church. Catholics on one side (right in this view), and protestants on the other.
It’s a very picturesque spot, and has a number of Teply headstones.
Breaking news!
We beat the record of nine grandparents in one cemetery (Hanover, Kansas). Here there are eleven of our grandparents that we know of.
- 1714 Jan Teply (9G)
- 1729 Anna Laub Teply (8G)
- 1736 Katerina Javorsky Teply (9G)
- 1733 Jakub Jilek (8G)
- 1749 Veronica Jilek (8G)
- 1815 Jan Teply (5G)
- 1821 Frantisek Zahradnik (5G)
- 1829 Terezie Bohac Zahradnik (5G)
- 1840 Frantisek Petras (5G)
- 1851 Anna Teply Petras (5G)
- 1852 Terezie Zahradnik Petras (4G)
There’s are obvious gaps of 6G and 7G and 10G grandparents in this list. I’m sure most of them are buried here too, but I can’t prove their burial registers.
And there are dozens of other Teplys buried here that were siblings and aunts and uncles and cousins.
Nibbles Extra Credit
At the time of the Patent of Toleration in 1781, there were no Bohemian protestant preachers. Everyone had been Catholic for 150 years.
So the newly founded protestant churches imported preachers from Hungary. The first seven preachers at Borová were Hungarian.
More Nibbles Extra Credit
Trivia Question:
It was Emperor Joseph II that we have to thank for the Patent of Toleration, as well as other reforms. He was interested in the ideals of the Enlightenment.
Not so for his sister? Was she a jerk? Or was she misunderstood? An interesting question.
Who was she?
Sources
- Images of Pustá Rybná protestant church – Ben Skála – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16265677
- Borová Catholic church web site – http://farnostborova.cz/index.php/o-farnosti-ctecka/o-farnosti.html
- Joseph II – Portrait by Carl von Sales – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_II,_Holy_Roman_Emperor
- Image of Queen in Trivia Question – Heritage Images – Contributor – Getty Images
- Photos – Mark Jarvis – October 2019
Family Nibbles 
Emperor Joseph II’s sister was Marie Antoinette. She was not interested in reform, thought everything was fine—or so it has been said. “Let them eat cake.” Perhaps she was misunderstood.
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