Sázava Monastery

The monastery is notable, long after its foundation by St Procopius of Sázava, for having followed the Byzantine Rite in the Old Church Slavonic liturgical language in the 11th century.

[3] Unusually for a Benedictine abbey, Sázava was an important center of the Byzantine Rite Divine Liturgy in Old Church Slavonic (rather than Ecclesiastical Latin) until 1096.

In December 1096, the monks were expelled for the second time, by duke Bretislav II, marking the end of the Byzantine Rite in the Czech lands.

The Byzantine Catholic monks were replaced by Latin Rite Benedictines from Břevnov Monastery under abbot Diethard (d.

The monastery's founder Procopius was formally canonized in Sázava, in the presence of Ottokar, the first hereditary king of Bohemia, on 4 July 1204.

The Rococo altar with a painting of the Assumption of Mary by Jan Petr Molitor and frescos of this period are extant.

The monastery domain again fell to secular owners from 1809, first to Wilhelm Tiegel of Lindenkrone, who used the cloister as a chateau, while the basilica remained in operation as a parish church.

Benedictine monk and priest Method Klement moved from Emmaus to Sázava in 1940 and began preparatory work, but the plan was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II and the subsequent communist regime.

As part of the reprivatization following the establishment of the Czech Republic, the property was restored to Marie Hayessová, as heiress of the Schwarz family in 2003.