Eye of God restored to Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
A two-meter-wide stained glass window with the Eye of God, which was most likely hidden by a priest during the communist regime so as to safeguard it, has been discovered and restored to the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Kunratice u Cvikova, north of Prague.
The stained glass window has an elliptic shape, bordered by plant motifs and in the middle is a triangle with the Eye of God surrounded by rays of light. It was made for the church 150 years ago by a well-known German stained glass artist, Richard Schlein from Zittau who had workshops in Prague and Hrádek nad Nisou. The work of art was prominently placed above the alter of the church, which is also known as the Crystal Temple. It stayed in the church for a century before mysteriously disappearing sometime in the 1980s.
Last year parts of the church were in need of emergency repairs and it was then that construction workers discovered the original stained glass window which had been walled in behind the alter for several decades. Priest Rudolf Repka says its discovery was like a miracle.
“This is just my guess, but I think that what happened is that the local priest secretly had the stained glass window walled-in so as to preserve it from the vandalism of the communist regime which destroyed many church relics.”
Despite the effort to safeguard the work of art, the original suffered damage and was only partially preserved, so it could not be returned to its original place after undergoing restoration. It is now on display in a lighted glass case in the main nave of the church.
The Church also ordered a faithful copy of the artwork to be made and installed in its rightful place above the altar. Zdeněk Kudláček, owner of the Nový Bor stained glass workshop which got the commission, says eight skilled glass masters worked to produce a perfect replica. He himself masterminded the production of the copy.
“It is a painting on glass which is smooth on one side and structured on the other. The painting is fired at 550 °C in a kiln. The paint is thus baked into the glass. The entire composition is made of several pieces which are surrounded and held in place by a tinned frame.”
The price of the copy was around 200,000 crowns, and seven donors contributed to it, including the author of the replica himself.
The author of the original, Richard Schlein from Zittau has works in dozens of buildings in the Liberec and Jablonec regions, but this particular stained glass window is one of his exceptional pieces.
Its return to the church was accompanied by a celebratory mass and the new stained glass window was blessed by Bishop Stanislav Pribyl of Litoměřice.
