St. Barbara's Column, Cholina

I, Johann Sturmer, I was born in 1675 in the Prussian Konigsberg in a Lutheran home. As part of their journeys to work and improving my sculpture it shortly after the turn of the century arrived in the town of Olomouc, the seat of the bishop and the second oldest university in the Czech lands. Here I am established master sculptor Franz Zürn st. She took to learning. After several years, I have for some time moved to Svitavy and worked example for Moravskotřebovské Franciscans. There, I converted to Roman Catholicism and became my wife Maria Elisabeth to me in the coming years given birth to eight children, of which, however, only the first two daughters survive until adulthood.

December 2, 1712, I bought a house No. 3 to Böhmengasse - today's ul. May 8 - in Olomouc, where I had moved with his family. During the following year, they accepted the Olomouc burghers and All Souls' Day after day I became a master sculptor. Then to fully develop my considerable creative activity over a wide area.

In the same period and the contract for the construction of the statue of St. Barbara at the Hana village of choline, which I received from the pastor of the local Premonstratensian from the Hradisko near Olomouc, Ernest P. Varadii. The impulse to erect pillars of the statue was a special reverence, which is St. Barbara and St.. Joseph patrons as good death received by patients. It was the pilgrims who came to love the statue of the Virgin Mary Cholinská pray for his recovery and also ailing from a local hospital, or the poorhouse.

Socha sv. Barbara, I have already made a Maletin"s sandstone was erected in front of the local hospital May 25, 1715, during the great waves of religiosity that flared after the last plague epidemic in the Czech lands. At the time of the spread of disease to local residents prayed to St. Barbara is the patron saint of plague, the Black Death to the village avoid a monument is a sign of gratitude for this grace also.

A further impetus for the creation of the statue of the patroness of good death was to protect pilgrims heading to cholinskému temple. The sculpture was solemnly consecrated hradiským abbot Benedict Bönisch on 10 September 1715. The consecration was attended by several high-level representatives from the Premonstratensian Hradisko and the Holy Kopeček. Dishes for festive feast prepared culinary master Johann Schubrt. At the dedication of sculptures came together many believers from a wide area, who were so moved by the ceremony that the statue of the patroness of good death kissing and glorified, and there was a great waste of offerings.

I carved the figure of a saint by the statue of St. Barbara on the Charles Bridge, which emerged from the workshop of the famous family of sculptors Brokof. I did not mirror the composition overturned that Barbara's face facing the access road to the temple and its benign view and welcomed the incoming pilgrims to the Virgin Mary Cholinská. Besides sculpting exercise my skills and knowledge of Father Varadii of the lives of the saints, we are placing a statue of St. Barbara also created a distinctive element of the landscape. During the passage of pilgrims around the rectory Barbara's skyline, towering above the low building Hospital, draws progressively towards the sky and dominates the other side of the sacred place. After incoming received almost at its level, open view to their destination on pilgrimage church.

Hopefully it will be my job for many years to bring all people not only please the eye, but also to comfort a troubled soul.

Text prepared: Mgr. Milan Škobrtal