2024-08-21 06:16:38
Friday’s conference and concerts in Žďár nad Sázavou commemorated 30 years since the local pilgrimage church of St. John of Nepomuk on Zelená hora became part of the UNESCO World Cultural and Natural Heritage List. The program culminated in an evening performance by Vojtěch Dyk, who sang from a pontoon on the surface of Konventský rybník.
The concert by Vojtěch Dyk, accompanied only by a pianist, started after 7 pm in the evening. The performance on the surface of the pond between the castle and Zelena Hora was watched by spectators from the shore and the hillside below the church.
“Thirty years on the UNESCO list is definitely a reason for celebration,” said Žižár mayor Martin Mrkos from the Mayors and Independents movement from a pontoon on the water. He thanked all those who contributed to the inclusion of Zelena Hora on the list, for example Radslav Kinski, the now deceased father of the current owner of the castle. “I am very happy because we are together. And that is very important, especially nowadays,” his son, patron and financial advisor Constantin Kinský told the audience.
Parish priest Marek Husák from the parish that manages the monument spoke about the spiritual significance of the place visited by pilgrims and tourists. “This church is called a star among stars,” he said. The celebration also included a professional conference focused on the significance of UNESCO and European Heritage marks, which took place on Zelená hora. The music started two hours after noon, first on the terrace by the castle. The first to perform were the participants of Bohuslav Matoušek’s master violin courses there.
For the round anniversary, the city also had video mapping created. The organizers projected it on the jagged facade of the Zelenohora temple until the wee hours of the night. He recalled the story of the pilgrimage temple since its foundation. The city paid 400 thousand crowns for video mapping. The Ministry of Culture and the region contributed to the festivities.
The Pilgrimage Church of St. John of Nepomuk on Zelená hora in Žďár nad Sázavou is considered the most important Czech building in the Baroque Gothic style. Conceptually and in detail, the project, the basis of which was the composition of the five-pointed star, is full of references to church symbolism associated with the legend of the martyrdom of St. John of Nepomuk.
The floor plan of the temple has the shape of a five-pointed star. The five, which is repeated many times in the design, also symbolizes the five wounds of Christ, as well as the five letters in the Latin “tacui”, which means “I was silent”. The work of the famous architect Jan Blažej Santini-Aichel completely deviates from the norms of the time and has long been met with misunderstanding. As early as 1886, the architect Friedrich Radnitzký described the church as an “artistically mysterious phenomenon”.
As in his other buildings, Santini used light to create space. It was based on the baroque interpretation of light as a symbol of God’s presence. This is why it is sometimes referred to as “sacred light”. Another prominent symbol are the stars, which appear countless times on the exterior and interior of the pilgrimage site. In addition to the eight-pointed ones, you can also find six-pointed – St. John’s – and ten- and twelve-pointed – Marian stars in the church.
A ring of ambits was built around the church on a ground plan consisting of ten sections of circles, divided by five pentagonal chapels and five gates. The roofs of the chapels were originally topped by five pylons, which again pointed to the importance of light and symbolized eternity. These ambits with chapels were used for pilgrim prayers and to protect pilgrims from bad weather.
The church was consecrated on September 27, 1722. Six decades later, the heyday of the place of pilgrimage was interrupted by a fire. The monument burned down and was in danger of disappearing. Thanks to the care of local residents and the parish priest, it was saved, but at the end of the Josephine reforms, it had to change its mission. Instead of a place of pilgrimage, it became an ordinary church, and the originally generously designed surroundings of the building turned into a cemetery for nearby Žďár nad Sázavou. The cemetery was only closed in the 1990s.
The UNESCO World Heritage Committee placed the church on the prestigious list in 1994. Ten years later, the Roman Catholic parish took over the administration of the building from the National Monument Institute. In recent years, with the help of subsidies, she took care of repairs to the church and the cloister that surrounds it. The Žďár monument was included in the UNESCO list as the fourth place in the Czech Republic, after Prague, Telč and Český Krumlov.
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