Křtiny, Czechia — Catholic Pilgrimage Guide

Křtiny means baptisms. The village carries the name and so does the wooded valley of the Moravian Karst around it, called Vallis Baptismi, the Valley of Baptism. The tradition behind both names is that Cyril and Methodius are said to have baptised converts here in the ninth century. Brno is fourteen kilometres to the south-west, past the limestone gorges and caves.

What pilgrims come for stands on the high altar of the church: a stone Gothic Madonna, known in Moravia as Panna Maria Křtinská. The legend of her arrival begins in a thicket near Bukovinka, where the statue is said to have been found after a storm and carried down to Křtiny by the Premonstratensian canons of Zábrdovice; the village version adds that after her first procession she went back to the thicket overnight. In 1720 the parish counted forty-one thousand pilgrims. On 1 May 1750 the Madonna was carried out of the Chapel of St. Anne into the new church and set on its altar.

That church is the largest pilgrimage complex Jan Blažej Santini-Aichel built, and Moravia calls it Perla Moravy, the Pearl of Moravia. The plan is a Greek cross: a wide round nave with four apses opening off it, curved cloisters — the ambity — swinging out to enclose a courtyard, and the Chapel of St. Anne shutting the courtyard at its eastern end. The Stations of the Cross run round the cloisters. Below the church floor lies an ossuary of about a thousand dead.

📜 History & Spiritual Significance

The Premonstratensian canons of Zábrdovice abbey in Brno held Křtiny for centuries, and it was their provost who commissioned Santini. Building started at the eastern end with the Chapel of St. Anne in 1718, which took the parish services while the great church went up beside it. The foundation stone of the church was laid in 1728, and František Benedikt Klíčník carried out the work on the ground.

Santini had drawn twin chapels and twin cloisters, St. Anne to the east and St. Joseph to the west. The western half was never built, and the courtyard keeps the half-symmetry a pilgrim can read from the steps. The church was finished in 1750 and blessed on the first of May, the day the Madonna came over from the chapel. Twenty-one years of decoration followed. Matyáš František Chorinský z Ledské, the first Bishop of Brno, consecrated the church on 21 April 1771. Jan Jiří Etgens painted the vaults, and Ignác Lengelacher cut the statues on the front.

Joseph II suppressed the Zábrdovice monastery in 1784. The provostry north of the church was rebuilt as a neo-Renaissance chateau in 1864 and 1865, with a Baroque remnant of it kept for the rectory. Resident religious life at Křtiny lapsed for a long time; canons came back to the parish in September 2018.

An explosion damaged the church in 1945 as the front passed through the valley. Restoration ran from 1975 to 2009. In 2008 the Czech Republic declared the whole pilgrimage complex a national cultural monument.

The ossuary was opened by a speleological survey in 1991. Under the church floor lay the remains of about a thousand people, buried between the thirteenth and the early eighteenth century. Twelve of the skulls carry a painted T-shaped cross and a laurel wreath. Who painted them, and what the marks meant, is not recorded.

A carillon of thirty-three bells hangs in the complex, 2,487.6 kilograms of bronze, and kudyznudy.cz records it as the largest free-standing carillon in Central Europe. It plays on Wednesday and Saturday evenings and on Sunday at midday.

The walking pilgrimages are part of the place as much as the building is. The parish of Brest first walked to Křtiny in 1793, some seventy kilometres of road. Brno keeps its own walking pilgrimage in May.

☩ Pilgrimage Sites in Křtiny

Church of the Name of the Virgin Mary

Kostel Jména Panny Marie

The pilgrimage church on a Greek-cross plan, its round nave lit from a drum and opening into four apses, with Etgens's frescoes overhead. The stone Gothic Madonna stands on the high altar. The curved cloisters run out from the church to enclose the courtyard and carry the Stations of the Cross; the parish church of Křtiny is here, and the complex is a national cultural monument.

Address Křtiny 72, 679 05 Křtiny, Czechia GPS 49.296684, 16.742636 Map Google Maps Web pmkrtiny.cz

Chapel of St. Anne

Kaple svaté Anny

The tower chapel at the eastern end of the cloister courtyard, the first part of Santini's complex to be built and the parish church of Křtiny until 1750. The Madonna was kept here before she was carried into the new church. The St. Anne pilgrimage is held at the chapel in July.

Address Křtiny, 679 05 Křtiny, Czechia GPS 49.296958, 16.742644 Map Google Maps Web katalog.biskupstvi.cz

Ossuary

Kostnice

The bone chamber under the church, reached through the church itself. About a thousand people lie here, buried between the thirteenth and the early eighteenth century, and twelve of the skulls carry a painted T-cross and laurel wreath. Access is limited to set times or arrangement with the parish, which publishes both.

Address Křtiny 72, 679 05 Křtiny, Czechia GPS 49.296684, 16.742636 Map Google Maps

🕯️ Annual Feast Days & Celebrations

Feast of the Holy Name of Mary — the Sunday nearest September 12

The titular feast of the church, kept on the Sunday nearest the day itself. It is the patronal day of the shrine and of the parish.

Main Pilgrimage — the weekend of Pentecost

Hlavní pouť, the great gathering of the Křtiny year, kept from Saturday to Monday over the Pentecost weekend.

First Spring Pilgrimage — the weekend after Ascension

Malá pouť, the small pilgrimage, one week before the main one. It opens the walking season in the valley.

Coronation Pilgrimage — the last Sunday of August

Korunovační pouť, kept by the parish on the last Sunday of the month.

St. Anne's Pilgrimage — July

Svatoanenská pouť, held at the Chapel of St. Anne at the eastern end of the courtyard.

Brno Walking Pilgrimage — May

Brněnská pěší pouť, walked out from Brno to the shrine. The Orel Catholic sports guild and the firefighters keep their own pilgrimages to Křtiny in the same season.

All Souls' Pilgrimage — October

Dušičková pouť, the pilgrimage for the dead, among the last of the named gatherings of the year. The Mass of St. Hubert, for the hunters, follows in November.

🛏️ Where to Stay

Poutní dům Norbertinum (pilgrim accommodation) — The parish's own pilgrim house in the church complex, nine beds, kept in the plain style of the Spanish albergues and meant for walkers on the St. James and Cyril and Methodius trails. There is no online booking; the parish asks pilgrims to announce their arrival through its site. Website

Zámek Křtiny ⭐⭐⭐ — The chateau immediately north of the pilgrimage church, the former Premonstratensian provostry, run as a hotel by the school forest enterprise of Mendel University. Twenty-three rooms look out on the church or the forest, and there is a restaurant on site. Website ∙ Reserve this hotel

Penzion Starý pivovar (pension) — A family guesthouse in the village at Křtiny 41, on the edge of the Moravian Karst protected area, with rooms and apartments and enclosed parking. Website

🚗 Getting There

By Air: Brno-Tuřany (BRQ) is the nearest airport, about 16.5 km from the church in a straight line.

By Train: No railway reaches Křtiny. The nearest station is Adamov, on the České dráhy line from Brno hlavní nádraží, about 22 minutes from Brno with some 48 trains a day. From Adamov, bus 157 covers the last leg through Josefov in about 15 minutes.

By Bus: Bus 201 of the South Moravian integrated transport network, IDS JMK, runs direct from Brno-Židenice station through Stará Osada, Ochoz and Březina to Křtiny in about 40 minutes. Bus 157 comes in from Vyškov in about 40 minutes. From Blansko, routes 231 and 167 connect to the 201, about 35 minutes in all.

By Car: The village directs drivers to Mapy.cz rather than to a road number. There is parking at the church and more at the chateau a few minutes' walk away.

On Foot: A branch of the Cyril and Methodius Trail passes through Křtiny, running from the pilgrimage site of Vranov u Brna by way of Klimentek and Buchlov castle to Velehrad, five daily stages in all. The parish publishes a step-free route into the church for pilgrims who need it; the link is under Useful Links.

📚 Further Reading

No book in English is written on Křtiny itself. The three below carry the Marian devotion the shrine keeps.

The Dominican Sisters of Mary. Manual for Marian Devotion — A compact book of Marian prayers and practices, written for ordinary parish use.

St. Louis de Montfort. St. Louis de Montfort's Total Consecration to Jesus through Mary — The classic act of consecration in a day-by-day modern translation by Scott L. Smith.

Carrie Gress. The Marian Option: God's Solution to a Civilization in Crisis — An argument for Marian devotion as the remedy for a civilization in crisis, for the general reader.

🎥 Recommended Videos

ŘKF Křtiny — kostel Jména Panny Marie, Santiniho Perla Moravy — The shrine community's own tour of the pilgrimage church, its exterior, interior and statuary. In Czech.

Jubilejní chrám | Křtiny — A documentary on the jubilee church from Tv Noe, the Czech Catholic television station. In Czech.

Maria — SBMka ve Křtinách — Marian devotion and the parish schola singing at the shrine, from the Křtiny parish channel. In Czech.

🔗 Useful Links

Poutní místo Křtiny — the parish and shrine site — The parish's own pages, with the year's pilgrimages at pmkrtiny.cz/prehled-pouti and the Mass schedule at pmkrtiny.cz/bohosluzby.

Step-free access to the church — The parish's own directions for reaching the church without steps, by way of the cloister gate and the north side door.

Diocese of Brno catalogue: Křtiny — The diocesan register entry for the pilgrimage church, in the Blansko deanery. In Czech.

Křtiny — public transport connections — The village's own page on the bus and rail links from Brno, Blansko, Adamov and Vyškov. In Czech.

Cyril and Methodius Route — Křtiny — The Council of Europe cultural route's page for the village and its walking stages.

Czech Wikipedia: Kostel Jména Panny Marie (Křtiny) — The fullest account of the church's building and history. In Czech.

🥾 Pilgrim Routes

Cyril and Methodius Route — Cyrilometodějská stezka, a Cultural Route of the Council of Europe following the mission of the two apostles to the Slavs, 1,200 km in all. Křtiny is a named waypoint, and three published stages start or end there: Vranov–Křtiny, Křtiny–Rousínov and Křtiny–Brno.

Way of St. James, Moravian stretch — The first waymarked St. James route in Moravia runs from Brno to Mikulov, 62.5 km, waymarked with scallop-shell signs by Ultreia and the Czech Tourist Club. The route site's Křtiny–Brno stage page directs walkers heading on toward Mikulov to follow the St. James signs.