Moravian regions published a common guide titled "Spiritual Legacy of Moravia and Silesia"

18. 1. 2013

"The year 2013 brings the Cyrillo-Methodian anniversary and with that also an increased interest in the spiritual heritage of Moravia and Silesia," says the governor of the Olomouc Region, Jiří Rozbořil, and adds, "The guide 'Spiritual Legacy of Moravia and Silesia' is an evidence to the fact that we cherish spiritual traditions of our country and, at the same time, that we want to be good hosts and guides for visitors to our regions, be them from the Czech Republic or from abroad."

Sacral monuments form an axis of the new guide. The publication describes or mentions more than 120 of them altogether. These are not only buildings – temples or synagogues, but also places of pilgrimage, pilgrims' paths, stations of the cross, monasteries, cemeteries and the like.

In the guide individual goals are grouped in six thematic units. While the first two trips are supraregional – they include almost the whole historical territory of Moravia and the Czech Silesia, the remaining four of them represent spiritual monuments located in the individual four regions of Moravia.

The first trip, out of the two supraregional ones, is devoted to the anniversary of the arrival of the Slavic missionaries Saints Cyril and Methodius to Great Moravia. Authors of the publication introduce to their readers – users of the brochure – well-known as well as not so well-known places connected with activities of the missionaries through the regions of Moravia.

The other trip is made up of the most important places of spiritual lives of Moravians and Silesians belonging to various religious professions. Among them we can find not only cathedral temples, well-known places of pilgrimage or Jewish monuments but also the most significant church buildings from a historical and architectonic viewpoint.

The so-called regional trips introduce the most outstanding monuments of the individual regions, or from their parts. The Olomouc Region is represented by Střední Hana, a region situated above Olomouc and the foothills of the Jeseníky mountains. In the publication the South Moravian Region consists of its northern part, Brněnsko and its south-eastern part. The Moravian-Silesian Region acquaints users with monuments in the territory of Krnovsko, in the varied territory of Silesia-Hlučínsko-Těšínsko, to lead the traveller to the mountain environment of Beskydy. The no less varied Zlín Region, for which the name "Eastern Moravia" has been increasingly used in tourism, presents the spiritual heritage of Valašsko, Moravian Slovakia, Hana and also the borderland of these peculiar regions. Also places which are part of the project called Open Gates are, in an abundant amount, included in the offer of monuments in the Zlín Region.

The publication titled "Spiritual Legacy of Moravia and Silesia" can be used as a catalogue of the most significant monuments covering almost the whole territory of the historical countries of Moravia and the Czech Silesia. However, at the same time, the guide is drafted as an offer of a number of trips. In each of them there is a proposal for a logical sequence of visits to individual places. Among the individual goals routes for pedestrians and for bikers and motorists are described.

The authors have also thought of some variegation of the journeying to spiritual monuments and so they offer also a number of other – secular attractive places. There are almost five tens of them in the guide. A list of contact information of nearby information centers is also part of the guide. It is there and in many other places where the guide will also be available, as well as in the agencies of CzechTourism in Poland, in Slovakia, in Italy and in German speaking countries. Moravian regions – The Olomouc Region, the South Moravian Region, the Moravian-Silesian Region and the Zlín Region have been cooperating in the sphere of tourism for a long time. They have already issued a number of publications together (e.g. to support cyclotourism, pedestrian tourism or cross-country skiing).

You can find more about the publication "Spiritual Legacy of Moravia and Silesia", but also about the regions themselves, in the following website presentations: