Church of the Name of the Virgin Mary (Křtiny)

Křtiny – whose name evokes baptism (křtiny) – has drawn pilgrims for many centuries, and local tradition reaches back far further than the Baroque church. Legend holds that Sts Cyril and Methodius, founders of the Slavic Christian church, baptised converts here in the 9th century, and that in 1210 the Virgin Mary appeared in the blossom of a horse-chestnut tree nearby, sealing the place as sacred. The site may have been a pagan shrine before that: its dual iconography is said to echo not only the Virgin but Mokoš, the Slavic mother goddess, with hints of Veles, god of the underworld – a reminder of how readily Slavic paganism and Christianity were woven together in this region. The member who suggested it records it as a major node on the 'Templar alignment', crossed by four further Type 4 lines. This entry is community-contributed and has not yet been surveyed.

The Church of the Name of the Virgin Mary (Kostel Jména Panny Marie) at Křtiny, in the South Moravian Region of the Czech Republic, is one of the oldest and most celebrated Marian pilgrimage sites in Moravia – often called the 'Pearl of Moravia'. The present church is a masterpiece of the radical Baroque, designed by Jan Blažej Santini-Aichel on a Greek-cross plan for the Premonstratensian abbey of Zábrdovice; the commission dates from 1711, building began around 1718, and the church was consecrated in 1771. It replaced two earlier medieval churches – a larger and a smaller – that once stood on the site, and it enshrines a 14th-century Gothic statue of the Madonna, the focus of pilgrimage here since the Middle Ages, on its high altar. The wider pilgrimage complex includes the Chapel of St Anne, a former provostry and a park, and is protected as a national cultural monument.