Tourists will not pay in the cathedral, neither for the tomb nor for the tower

Prague - In the St. Vitus Cathedral at Prague Castle, which the Catholic Church is set to hand back to the state on April 16, tourists will no longer pay, starting from Maundy Thursday, not even to enter the crypt or the tower. The hundred-crown entrance fee to the cathedral was introduced last autumn by the Metropolitan Chapter for visitor regulation when it took over the church, which was assigned to it by the court after more than 13 years of disputes over its ownership.
    After the Supreme Court returned the case to the beginning this year, the Church and Prague Castle agreed last week, after lengthy negotiations, to jointly oversee the operation of the cathedral after its return to the state. They are now still negotiating the details.
    "The cathedral will be freely accessible to all visitors and will not be included in any guided tours. Entrance to the cathedral will only be regulated during tourist peak times, using a stewarding service. This will ensure that there are not too many people in the cathedral at once," said Adéla Douchová from the Administration of Prague Castle to ČTK.
    As she added, entry to the tower and the crypt will also be free; access to the tower will continue to follow the same rules as before. This means it will only be accessible if the weather allows - to ensure the safety of visitors.
    The debate mainly concerned the interior furnishings of the cathedral, which, according to the archbishopric, belong to and have always belonged to the Church and were not a subject of agreements during the years of state management. These are objects that make up the decoration of the cathedral, mostly of immense historical and cultural value.
    St. Vitus is the most visited domestic church, a symbol of Czech statehood and the main shrine of the Prague Catholic Archdiocese. The operation there will be ensured by the Metropolitan Chapter in cooperation with the Administration of Prague Castle, Douchová reminded.
    During the time when it was being decided, the Church allowed free entry only to a small part of the cathedral near the entrance. The cathedral is a bishop's church and the chapter administers it on behalf of the bishop, in this case, Cardinal Miloslav Vlk. The archbishopric expected that the income from the entrance fees would be sufficient to cover the operating costs associated with the cathedral. However, no figures on visitor numbers or revenue have been published yet.
    The Administration of Prague Castle included the cathedral in the tour circuit until last summer, but an entrance fee was charged only for the royal crypt and the tower. Ticket prices remained unchanged after the cathedral was removed from the tour circuits, and according to a statement from the Castle last autumn, interest from tourists in touring the Castle without including the cathedral in the circuit did not decrease.
    The basic entrance fee to the buildings of Prague Castle remains 350 crowns for the large circuit (which includes the Old Royal Palace, the exhibition "The Story of Prague Castle," St. George's Basilica, the Golden Lane with Daliborka Tower, the Picture Gallery of Prague Castle, and the Jiřský Monastery with collections of the National Gallery) and 250 crowns for the small circuit (Old Royal Palace, St. George's Basilica, and the Golden Lane with Daliborka Tower). It is also possible to visit individual heritage sites.