Churches will open their doors at night for the ninth time

Prague - Extraordinary experiences are being prepared for visitors by the organizers of the Night of Churches event, which will take place on June 9. People can not only visit churches and prayer rooms at unusual times but can also access areas that are not usually open during regular visits. They will also be treated to concerts, guided tours, theater performances, workshops, the chance to see sacristies, monastery gardens, climb towers, or even try playing the organ. Visitor interest is increasingly shifting from the most famous churches in Prague to regions and places that are not among the most visited.

Today, Michal Němeček, the director of the Pastoral Center of the Archdiocese of Prague, shared this with journalists. In Prague and the Central Bohemian Region alone, over 300 churches will be open, with around 1500 across the entire country. There is a great interest among people; last year, a total of half a million visitors attended.

"It is becoming more and more a question for us of how to adapt the program. At first, we just opened the churches, then came lectures about what can be found in the church," Němeček described how the Night of Churches is expanding. According to him, the organizers aim for participants to also encounter the phenomenon of faith and Christianity. "It continues to confront and provoke us. It also turns out that many visitors have already seen regular places, and it happens that people from Prague take their cars and go to see places they otherwise wouldn't reach. It seems that interest is shifting from Prague to the outskirts, and that is interesting," stated Němeček.

This year, the program will be enhanced by a pontoon named František, which will be moored by Charles Bridge. During the evening, the St. Vitus canon Tomáš Roule will be conversing with guests, including Prague Archbishop Cardinal Dominik Duka, theologian and philosopher Tomáš Halík, church historian Peter Moreé, director Jiří Strach, and one of the Benedictines from the Venio Abbey at Bílá Hora.

A significant experience is also promised by the traditional Pilgrimage of Light across Charles Bridge. People can participate holding a candle from St. Thomas Church in Malá Strana to the Church of the Most Holy Savior at Křížovnické Square. They can bring their own candle or pick one up and leave it at the church on the other side of the Vltava. In the tourist-popular Church of Our Lady Victorious with the famous Infant Jesus, a program is being prepared where people will have the opportunity to try casting small figures of the Infant Jesus out of tin and listen to the church organ.

The organizers from the individual dioceses drew inspiration for organizing the Night of Churches from a similar event that has been held in Austria for a long time. The Night of Churches is meant for the widest possible public - even for those who stand outside the church or on its fringe, say the organizers.