Sunday, November 8, 2015

Liechtenstein Crypt in Czech Republic Renovated and Re-Consecrated

Photo: Attila Racek / Deník
After three years of renovation, the burial site of the House of Liechtenstein in the south Moravian town of Vranov was re-opened and re-consecrated earlier this week. The event was attended by the Prince Hans-Adam II and the Princess Marie as well as Princess Maria-Pia, Liechtenstein's ambassador to Austria and the Czech Republic. (Read here and here why the Liechtenstein's have a crypt in what today is the Czech Republic. In short: They did once own large chunks of land there and it was their place of living.)

Photo: Attila Racek / Deník
The crypt in Vranov was seized from the Princely Family by the Czechoslovakian state after the end of the Second World War and came into the possession of the Roman Catholic Church six years ago, in 2009. The necessary renovation works which cost about 200,000 euros, however, were funded by the Liechtenstein family themselves. Prince Hans-Adam told Czech TV, "When I came here for the first time, which was I think in the 1960s, we thought that a reconstruction was necessary." Much like the family crypt in Liechtenstein, the renovated one in Vranov will be open to the public once a year, on November 1.

About the other seized Liechtenstein possessions in the Czech Republic, such as the Valtice-Lednice Cultural Landscape and its castles, Prince Hans-Adam said, "I haven’t given up the hope that really one day it will be possible to get it back."

More information at Radio Prague, more pictures at ČTK and Deník, and videos at Idnes and Česke noviny.

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