Orlová
The city that disappeared.
Oldest notion about Orlová comes from 1223, it was a village belonging to a benedictine monastery. Through the years it grew into a nice blossoming town of 35.000 (befor the War). Population consisted of Polish, Czech, German and Jewish nationals.
Than the troubles began. In 1938, when the Germans took over our borderlands, Polish army came and drew away Czechs. One year later Germany attacked Poland and Poles had to leave. The Nazis removed the Jews. And in the end of the War the Czechs (supported by Soviet army) revenged on Germans. So, there were almost no original inhabitants left.
But new movement started: Coal mines and steelworks in the whole industialized area needed thousands of workers, so they came to occupy the empty flats and houses. Orlová had again over thirty thousand people in the fifties.
Unfortunately, the mining had its minuses: the undermined houses became unstable, sometimes dangerous to live in. It would be too expensive to reconstruct them and the mining area was spreading wide - communist factories wanted more and more fuel. So, it was decided to build a new town some four kilometres away and move all the people into modern blocks of flats.
Churches were not allowed to move with people - as a part of the communist policy towards religion. They were not even allowed to repair buildings, so in the time of the Velvet Revolution 1989 the old town area consisted of only few houses and three churches in different state of decay. Hospital disappeared, castle, workers houses, bussiness school, post office...
In the nineties the movements turned backwards: mining was decreasing and ban on reconstruction was lifted. The mining company even accepted the legal responsibility for the harms, so it was possible to reconstruct and even reinforce the buildings. Everybody hoped people start pouring back to the old town and to the old churches.
Which haven't happened. And in 2018 Orlová was declared the worst place for living in the whole country...
So, the challenge for churches in Orlová is how to address people who were cut from their history, who have been cut from church for many years, who lost their relativly well paid jobs and are not able to find new. People who don't expect anything useful from churches, although many of them have never been to church, and some even didn't know there are some churches in Orlová
