The Orthodox Church of St. Cyril and Methodius in Kroměříž
Several spires and temples tower over Kroměříž, e.g. the tower of the Archbishop’schateau, listed by UNESCO, the spires and tall nave of the church of St. Moritz or the towers and imposing cupola of the Baroque church of St. John the Baptist. The Orthodox church of St. Cyril and Methodius on Slovanské square and its spire with onion-shaped roof in Russian-Byzantine style is not visible among them, but in its
significance it stands on par with the rest. The Orthodox church was built in 1946–1948 by the archimandrite Andrej Kolomacký as a monument to the victims of World War II. At the same time it symbolically commemorates Saint Gorazd II, whose family name was Matěj Pavlík (1879–1942), bishop of the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia, sainted in 1987. He studied in the Catholic archbishopric seminary in Kroměříž and was sentenced and executed for helping the paratroopers who assassinated Reinhard Heydrich in 1942.
