The Czech Constitutional Court has rejected a German Catholic religious order’s legal complaint over its failed bid to win control of Bouzov Castle in Moravia.

The court rejected the German order’s claim to be a legal successor to the Order of Teutonic Knights, which before World War II owned the 14th century castle.

The Czech National Heritage Institute refused to hand the castle over within the church restitution process back in 2014, arguing the law did not apply to that particular property.

The Nazis seized Bouzov Castle during the war and the Czechoslovak state confiscated it under the post-war Beneš Decrees, before the Communist February 1948 coup, the start of the decisive period set under the church property restitution law.

The order had earlier announced it would exhaust all legal possibilities to win control of the castle, including filing a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.