Churches promise mysterious experiences on Friday night

Prague - Organizers of the second year of the Night of Churches promise an unconventional and mysterious experience for this Friday. During this night, Christian churches and prayer houses will open their doors to the public across the Czech Republic and will invite visitors to places that are usually inaccessible, for cultural programs and masses. At least 921 churches from all over the Czech Republic will participate in the Night of Churches, which is twice as many as last year.
It is also more than in neighboring Austria, from where the idea came to the Czech Republic, and where churches will also share their testimonies on the same day. The event is being coordinated together by both countries, and for the first time this year, several dozen Slovak church stands will also participate. During the night, churches offer a casual approach and meeting with Christianity, allowing everyone to choose the degree of their closeness.
The organizer of the night in Prague, Milos Szabo, estimated, based on last year's interest, that the event could attract one to two million people to churches across Bohemia and Moravia this time. The secrets of the choirs, sacristies, crypts, prayer rooms, and other spaces will be revealed by 12 churches associated or affiliated with the Ecumenical Council of Churches of the Czech Republic.
"The event is taking place for the second time on such a large scale. The aim of the Night of Churches is not to hold any nighttime worship services or persuasion activities, but to open these spaces, which are usually visited by believers, to ordinary people who might feel a certain shyness or respect for this space and would normally not enter a church," Szabo told reporters today.
The programs of the Night of Churches, which include concerts, singing, guided tours, and meditations, will be free. For example, in the capital, Prague citizens will be offered 90 churches, church complexes, and monasteries, and across the entire Archdiocese of Prague, there will be 150 sanctuaries. The first program in the capital will start at 3:00 PM, and the last event will take place around one in the morning.
The official start across the country will be announced by bells at 6:00 PM, accompanied by a prayer for the Night of Churches. More information about the program can be found, and interested parties can create their own plan at www.nockostelu.cz. "We can enter the spaces that have shaped our religious, cultural, and social history. In many of them, our national history was formed," stated Prague Archbishop Dominik Duka. According to preacher Miloš Rejhcrt of the Czech Brethren Evangelical Church, the Night of Churches also symbolizes that it is not darkness, but light that is infinite.