Geography

Zelena hora at Zdar nad Sazavou

Zdar nad Sazavou is a district town in West Moravia located in Bohemian-Moravian Highlands. It has about 24 433 inhabitants. It is an industrial town that developed from a miners´and charcoal-burners´settlement near the bank of Sazava river. The settlement early became a small market town and was promoted to town in 1605. The core of the town is a square with the town hall. The dominant feature of the town is the forested hill Zelena hora with the noteworthy cemetery church of St John of Nepomuk.

The St John of Nepomuk Church of pilgrimage on Zelena hora hill is a building of the great architect Jan Blazej Santini Eichl. He was an Italian artist  born in Prague. The construction was started in 1719 and finished in 1722. In the same year it was consecrated as well. The church was built to pay tribute to the new saint, John of Nepomuk.

It is a Gothic church, rebuilt in the spirit of baroque Gothic. It is built on the ground plan of a five-pointed star. It has five entrances, five altars, five stars and five engels on the globe at the main altar. Number five was chosen according to St John´s legend which tells that Saint John of Nepomuk, not having betrayed the seal of confession of Queen Sophia, the wife of Wenceslas IV, to the king, was cruelly tortured first and then thrown down to Vltava river.

In the Latin translation, I was silent means TACUI, which has just five letters, and also, in the place of drowning, a crown from five stars appeared. In the top of the dome, a tongue is placed, the symbol of John of Nepomuk, surrounded by a circle of flames from which beams are blazing. The circumference of the cemetery is lined by arcades with parapets in the shape of ten-pointed star. Even the remains of late Gothic murals survived there. On the high altar there are sculptures of Gregor Thena. The lateral altars of the church are consecrated to the four evangelists: Matthew with the book, Mark with the lion, Lucas with the bull and John with the eagle. All the altars are made of limewood and have marmoreal imitation. In the church interior there are oval-shaped peripheral chapels connected with narrower pointed arches. A considerable number of interestingly placed windows provide abundance of light that widens the whole space in the baroque way and stresses the sculptural decoration. 

The fire broken out in 1784 ruined the St John of Nepomuk church and in the same year the emperor Joseph II dissolved the monastery including the church of pilgrimage. The church was reconstructed as late as in 1830 and, relating to it, the cemetery was founded in the inner grounds.

The exceptional values of this church of pilgrimage lead to the fact that it was registered in the UNESCO List of the World Cultural Heritage in 1994 as the first building in the Czech Republic.