Repair of Zelené hory will start in summer and will last for four years

Žďár nad Sázavou - Repairs of the Church of Saint John of Nepomuk on the Green Mountain in Žďár will begin in the summer. The restoration of this UNESCO-listed monument will cost 45 million crowns, and will involve both the façade and the interior. The church will then come closer to its original appearance, shaped by architect Jan Blažej Santini - Aichel. The work will take four years, and the parish will carry it out thanks to a European grant, said the restoration coordinator František Laštovička to reporters today. The pilgrimage site will remain open to the public even during the repairs.

The start of the repairs is planned for July. "This year we would like to begin with the adjustment of the outdoor plaster," Laštovička stated. The windows on the upper floor of the church, which were partially bricked up around 100 years ago, will return to their original appearance. "All the original baroque frames have been preserved, they were just bricked up. We will restore them," he added.

This year, work on the interior of the church should also begin, which will also involve its decoration. The reconstruction of the floor will be complex. The original multi-colored tiles of various shapes, arranged in geometric patterns, are to be restored. Experts are currently determining what material was actually used to create them. "If we can also succeed with the tiles, then the interior of the church will look almost as it did at the time of its creation," said Laštovička. The church was consecrated in 1722 and became a popular pilgrimage site. A fire in 1784 interrupted the period of flourishing for the site.

At the end of the work, the experts will focus on transforming the area between the church and the cloister, which last served as a cemetery, into a pilgrimage meadow. Some graves have been moved from the Green Mountain in recent years along with the remains, while others have only had their tombstones removed. "We would like to create a memorial place there, where there would be a cross and an opportunity to remember the deceased who stayed there," Laštovička stated.

The Roman Catholic parish, which has managed the Green Mountain since 2014, has received a grant for the church repairs from the European IROP program. It is now applying for another grant in the same program for the half-kilometer long cloister that surrounds the church. Given that the cloister is a significantly larger structure than the church itself, the costs for its restoration have been estimated at 118 million crowns. A modern representation of the Stations of the Cross should then be placed in the renovated cloister. If the union supports this second project as well, the parish could implement it by 2022.