Sázava Monastery – St. Procopius pilgrimage

On the International Day of Monuments on 17th – 18th April the Gothic tower of the monastery will be accessible to visit.

The extensive monastery grounds offer space for relaxation, learning, or meditation. With nearly a thousand years of history, the former monastery is literally suffused with a spiritual atmosphere and ancient tales.

Set off on a pilgrimage of Saint Procopius (died March 25, 1053), who founded one of the oldest Benedictine monastery in Bohemia in 1032. Pilgrimage together with the holy hermit, monk, abbot and Czech national patron St. Procopius through Czech history from era of Romanic, through Gothic and Baroque periods to the present.

The tour of Sázava Monastery is simultaneously a visit of the pilgrimage to St.. Procopius. A visitor or pilgrims visit places where our ancestors came for physical recovery and psychical reinforcement for centuries, and where has grown important spiritual center and a center of Slavic culture and literature.
The guided tour includes exteriors – the Northern garden with foundations of a Romanic church dedicated to St. Cross in 1070 and a space in front of a present church with Gothic monumental architecture of never finished cathedral of Our Lady and St. John the Baptist from the 14th century. Furthermore, the tour heads to the Baroque church of St. Procopius with a romantic picture of St. Procopius and a crypt under it, where holy relics of his body are deposited.
The tour continues to an exhibition called "Old Slavic Sázava" with a lot of medieval manuscripts in Slavic, Latin and Czech (an attraction, which exceeds borders of Bohemia, is a facsimile of the Reims Gospel, a monument connecting Sázava Monastery, Emauzy in Prague with Constantinople and France) and also photographs and archaeological discoveries from the environment of the Sázava Monastery as well as from the environment of the Great Moravia, where the cultural development of our Slavic language began thanks to St. Cyril and Methodius.

This year the tour of the Sázava Monastery will be enriched by newly uncovered and restored fresco in the cloister, depicting a scene from St. Procopius legend.

On 4th July you can go to Sázava on St. Procopius Day. Many concerts, performances and educational events will take place there.