Velehrad Abbey and Basilica – a brief history

Velehrad is a town in the south-eastern part of the Czech Republic, near Uherské Hradiště, and administratively belongs to the Zlín Region in Moravia. It is famous amongst Catholics, including those from Poland, primarily for the monastic basilica dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saints Cyril and Methodius, which is situated there. In April 1990, Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage here. The cross, together with the papal insignia, erected to commemorate this historic visit, still stands today in the square in front of the entrance to the Velehrad Basilica.

For Poles visiting Moravia, even if only for tourist purposes, this is an extraordinary place. The basilica harbours numerous traces of Polish heritage – ‘Polonica’ – which are rarely found in this region. First and foremost, mention must be made of the Abbot of Velehrad, who significantly reformed and rebuilt the Cistercian monastery, which had existed since the 13th century. This was Mikołaj Kromer of Biecz (1530–1572), the youngest brother of the eminent humanist, historian and Bishop of Warmia, Marcin Kromer. Thanks to the intercession of Wilhelm Prusinowski, Bishop of Olomouc, and Cardinal Stanisław Hozjusz, he was appointed Abbot of the Cistercian monastery in Velehrad. He held this office from 1567 until his death in 1572.

Kromer’s mission was to restore the abbey from the decline that had set in in 1421 during the Hussite invasions, at a time of civil war in the Kingdom of Bohemia. The abbot established a Cistercian novitiate in Velehrad and began rebuilding the infrastructure of the medieval Cyril and Methodius monastery. In a letter to his brother Martin, he wrote that he was ‘building a new monastery, equipped with a dormitory, refectory, library, chapter house and infirmary – in other words, rooms which the abbey had been without for 150 years’.

The Velehrad Basilica – architecture and interior design

The current appearance of the basilica in Velehrad bears only a slight resemblance to the Cistercian monastery consecrated in 1228. The destruction wrought by the Hussites in the 15th century forced a change to the original architecture. The most significant alterations, which we recognise today in the basilica’s Baroque style, took place in the 17th and 18th centuries, specifically between 1684 and 1689 and 1719 and 1735. What we see today is a late Baroque church which has retained the spatial layout of the Gothic-Romanesque church.

The interior decoration of the 17th-century basilica was designed by Giovanni Pietro Tencalla, the son of Władysław IV Vasa’s court architect, who was associated with the Habsburg court. His works can be seen at the Hofburg, and probably also at the Theresianum and the Palais Esterházy. The royal architect was also involved in the Baroque reconstruction of the Palace of the Bishops of Olomouc in Kroměříž (Czech: Kroměřižu). This is significant because the mythological sculptures from the Lusthaus (Rotunda) in the flower garden of the bishops’ summer residence were created by Michael Mandík from Gdańsk. This sculptor also enriched the Velehrad Basilica with his works. Between 1691 and 1692, the artist created eight statues (depicting saints), which stood in the front niches of the basilica until 1900.

Following the church fire in 1719, Baltazar Fontana, an Italian stucco artist working in Lesser Poland and Moravia, became the architect responsible for the work on the new interior design. He created the altars, both the main one in the chancel and the side altars located in the transept arms and in the basilica’s chapels (he is also likely to have designed the magnificent Baroque pulpit).

At that time, new frescoes appeared in the church. The artist who painted them (between 1719 and 1722) was the Moravian painter Franz Gregor Eckstein (c. 1689–1741). He was one of the best-known and most acclaimed late-Baroque artists specialising in church polychromy in Moravia, Silesia and the Crown Lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; he died in Lviv whilst working on the painted decoration of the vault of the Jesuit church. It is worth noting that Franz Eckstein’s monumental polychromes can be viewed both in the Piarist Church of the Transfiguration in Kraków and in the former Jesuit church (now the garrison church of the Greek Catholic Church) dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul in Lviv (Ukraine).

Scenes from the Life of Saint Hedwig of Silesia – a series of frescoes

For the monastery basilica in Velehrad, Eckstein painted a series of frescoes depicting scenes from the life of Saint Hedwig of Silesia. They are located in the right-hand side aisle, just behind the painting by Jan Matejko. The subject of these frescoes was the wife of Henry I the Bearded, Duke of Wrocław and of all Silesia and Greater Poland, and the mother of Henry II the Pious (and six other children). After 28 years of marriage, Hedwig and Henry took vows of chastity. Hedwig endured much suffering during her life. She survived the deaths of her husband and almost all her children. The most famous of them, Prince Henry the Pious, was killed in the battle against the Tatars at Legnica (1241). After her husband’s death, Jadwiga entered the Cistercian convent in Trzebnica. She became renowned for her piety, works of mercy, and her fasting and mortification. She died in 1243.

Hedwig was canonised by Pope Clement IV in 1267, and thanks to the intercession of King John III Sobieski, Pope Innocent XI introduced her cult into the universal Church (in 1680). Saint Hedwig is venerated as the patron saint of Poland, Silesia and Europe, as well as of refugees, reconciliation and peace. In iconography, she is depicted as a young married woman in a long dress and a princely cloak, wearing a tiara on her head; rarely, she is shown in a Cistercian habit. Her attributes include: a shoe in her hand (as she walked barefoot as an act of penance), a cross, a book, a statue of the Virgin Mary, a model of a church held in her hands, and a rosary.