Two Moravian Churches and a brief visit to Poland

Wooden Church in Bílá, Moravia © Ricky Yates

The modern-day state of the Czech Republic is made up of what was historically known as Bohemia and Moravia, together with a small part of Silesia. Bohemia forms the western part of the country with Prague at its centre, whilst Moravia forms the eastern part where the country’s second city Brno, is located. The bulk of Silesia now lies in Poland with only a very small part being contained within the borders of the Czech Republic, in the far north-eastern corner of the country.

On the afternoon of Thursday 30th September, we drove from Litomyšl, which is in East Bohemia, further eastwards into South Moravia, to the little town of Vizovice. The main claim to fame of Vizovice is that the very best variety of Slivovice (Czech plum brandy) is distilled within the town, a fact that we were . . . → Read More: Two Moravian Churches and a brief visit to Poland

An English – Czech Wedding in Moravia

With Lenka & Phil in the courtyard of Valtice Castle © Ricky Yates

On Friday 10th September, I conducted my third wedding in just under four weeks when Phil, an Englishman, married Lenka, a Czech. However, unlike the two previous weddings which I’ve described in earlier blogposts, this wedding took place over 270 km southeast of Prague in the small Moravian town of Valtice which lies very close to the border with both Austria and Slovakia.

In order to be sure that I arrived on time for the wedding and in a well prepared state, we chose to drive to Valtice the previous afternoon. The bulk of the journey was along the Prague-Brno motorway which was originally constructed during the Communist era. The section nearer to Brno still has the original concrete road surface which is horribly uneven and extremely noisy to drive on. But other . . . → Read More: An English – Czech Wedding in Moravia

My first Czech Wedding

Lea & Petra at Bouzov Castle © Ricky Yates

The newly married couple © Ricky Yates

Earlier this year I received an email from an English young man called Lea, asking if there was a Czech language version of the Anglican ‘Common Worship’ Marriage Service. He was planning to marry a Czech young lady called Petra, at a venue near her home town of Olomouc in the east of the Czech Republic, and this was the liturgy that they wanted to use. As there would be both English and Czech speakers attending the wedding, they wanted the text in both languages.

One of the many helpful things left by my predecessor John Philpott, was a ‘Word document’ containing exactly the text that Lea had asked for. I forwarded it to him but wrote an accompanying note asking who was going to use it? If they . . . → Read More: My first Czech Wedding