Pilgrimage churches in Hejnice and Horní Police as national monuments

Liberec - The pilgrimage churches in Hejnice in the Liberec region and Horní Police in the Česká Lípa region will become new national cultural monuments. Both baroque monuments will thus receive the highest protection. This will increase the number of monuments with this status in the Liberec Region to 16. Originally, the Liberec Region proposed three monuments, including the pilgrimage church in Bozkov in the Semilsko region, but the Ministry of Culture did not select that one. CTK was informed about this today by Květa Vinklátová, the councilor for heritage care in the Liberec Region (Mayors for the Liberec Region).

Currently, the Liberec Region has 14 national cultural monuments. In addition to the eight castles and chateaus managed by the National Heritage Institute, these include the Dlaskův Farmhouse in Dolánky, the Ještěd mountain hotel and transmitter, the glassworks grinding shop in Harrachov with machinery, Janat's Mill in Buřany, the economic courtyard of the castle in Zákupy, and the pilgrimage church of St. Lawrence and St. Zdislava in Jablonné v Podještědí, which is currently the only church in the region with the highest heritage protection. According to Vinklátová, another two churches will be included on the list at the end of October.

The compound of the pilgrimage church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary in Horní Police in the Česká Lípa region was built on the site of a gothic church burned down by the Hussites. According to legend, in 1523, a statue of the Virgin Mary was found on the banks of the Ploučnice River, and pious hands pulled it from the water and donated it to the local chapel. The statue was considered a heavenly gift, and people came to pay their respects. Today, it is part of the main altar, and the place where it was retrieved from the river is commemorated by a Marian column. The current baroque appearance of the pilgrimage site was established during the reconstruction at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. However, it is currently in a state of emergency and awaits reconstruction costing more than one hundred million crowns.

The church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary in Hejnice stands on the site of an old pilgrimage place whose origins date back to the 12th century, and it assumed its current form in the 17th and 18th centuries. According to Vinklátová, however, the heritage protection will not apply to the entire area. "The issue of heritage care is complicated by the drastic reconstruction in the former Franciscan monastery after 2000, where the International Center for Spiritual Renewal is now located," the councilor added. For this reason, according to Vinklátová, the heritage care department proposed that the area of the church with the ambon, the gothic statue of the Virgin Mary called the Beautiful Mother (Mater Formosa), and the space in front of the church be declared a national cultural monument.