Church of the Finding of the True Cross in Liberec, Baroque church in Staré Město, Liberec, Czech Republic.
The Church of the Finding of the True Cross is a hall church with a convexly curved west facade and two square towers topped by onion domes, built 1753–1761 to plans by Johann Josef Kunze. The narrower, right-angled presbytery adjoins rectangular oratories and a square sacristy, above which sits the Kopsch Library, Liberec's first public library. Inside, the nave and presbytery carry barrel vaults with lunettes, and the ceiling frescoes of the Legend of the Holy Cross, signed Jan Spitzer 1761, were repainted by Anton Köhler in 1864.
A plague cemetery was laid out here in 1680, when the epidemic claimed 300 victims. In 1695–1698 Marcantonio Canevalle built a small cross-shaped church on the site for Franz Ferdinand von Gallas; Johann Josef Kunze replaced it with the present late-baroque church in 1753–1756, and the interior was finished in 1761.
The church is a pilgrimage site centred on a 65 cm cedar-wood Pieta of the Virgin Mary with three rye ears and a sword on her breast, carved in 1506 for a London church and reportedly thrown into the Thames in 1538. In 1752 it drew 10,021 pilgrims to communion; pilgrimages were abolished under Joseph II after the last great one in 1781 and renewed in 1808. Today the Greek Catholic parish holds the Divine Liturgy here on Sundays at 10:00.
The church faces west, with its entrance on the west side; the Holy Sepulchre chapel, the Stations of the Cross and the Marian column stand on the northern square beside it. The Stations of the Cross, fourteen sandstone niches, were moved here in 1760 from Keil's Hill. The interior is open for the Greek Catholic Divine Liturgy on Sundays at 10:00.
The wooden Pietà on the high altar is 65 cm tall and carved from cedar. According to tradition it was made in 1506 for a London church, thrown into the Thames in 1538 under Henry VIII, recovered by a merchant, and later brought to Liberec via Frýdlant and Hejnice.
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