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Pilgrimage Church in Chlum Svaté Maří

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Category: Religious Sights region: 11-20 km from Františkovy Lázně | Město: Chlum Svaté Maří

The foundation of the pilgrimage church and the adjoining complex in the village of Chlum Svaté Maří (St. Mary's Wooded Hillock) is entwined with many legends. One legend says that a young apprentice found a statuette of the Virgin Mary with the Infant Jesus on the site of the present-day church. Although he took the statuette home with him, it returned to the place where he had found it. The young man built a wooden shelter over the miraculous statuette, to which many pilgrims presently started coming from far and near. Several structures had been built instead of the original shelter over the Marian statuette until the 15th century when the first pilgrimage Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene was erected on the site. The extensive Baroque complex comprising of the pilgrimage church with a provostry and adjoining convent of the Order of the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star, who were taking care of the pilgrims and the pilgrimage grounds, was built according to the design of Kryštof Dienzenhofer between the years 1687 and 1728.

Chlum Svaté Maří had belonged among the most sought-after pilgrimage sites in the country well into the mid 20th century when the Order of the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star was banished by the communist regime. The complex was returned to the order in the late 20th century and since then continuous efforts have been aimed at renovating the historically valuable structures and at reviving the pilgrimage tradition.