House for Pilgrims – Římov – fara a dům pro poutníky

Pilgrims’ House and Rectory – A Look into Its History

The Pilgrims’ House in Římov was built by the Jesuits in 1699. After the suppression of the Jesuit Order in 1773, the building continued to serve as a pilgrim inn. From 1830, it functioned as a rectory, a school, and a rental property, gradually falling into disrepair. In 2022, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) purchased the property and began its renovation so that the house could once again serve its original purpose – as the residence of the priestly community and as a center for the pastoral activities of the FSSP and the parish of Římov.

The pilgrimage site of Římov required accommodation for pilgrims already in the 17th century. For this purpose, the Jesuits built an unspecified house in Římov as early as 1669, while they themselves resided in their religious residence. As the number of pilgrims grew, the Jesuits decided in 1699 to construct a new and larger house for pilgrims – the present-day rectory, No. 10. This may have involved a significant expansion of the older pilgrims’ house, as suggested by the cellars, which do not correspond to the current floor plan of the building.

The pilgrims’ house, today No. 10, began construction on April 27, 1699, and was already completed by the end of October of the same year. Jesuit annual reports note that the construction was supported by the then prelate of Český Krumlov, Bohumír Kapoun of Svojkov (who that same year became bishop of Hradec Králové). The prelate also ordered his subjects to bring timber from Jesuit forests for the building, and the locals reportedly donated the best wood from their own forests. The high quality of this timber explains why the original roof structure from 1699 has survived to this day—over 326 years—although its delicate restoration now somewhat complicates the planned reconstruction.

The later Římov rectory originally provided accommodation for pilgrims. The ground floor served as a tavern while also operating a butcher’s shop. The first tenant of the pilgrims’ house and the first butcher was Laurenz Lutsch, who came to Římov from Kirchberg am Walde in Austria. At that time, the combination of butchery, tavern, and lodging was common: during the warm spring and summer months, pilgrims stayed in the house while cattle and sheep grazed outside, and in winter, meat was sold in a small butcher’s shop, which has survived to this day in the vaulted passage of the building.

Pilgrims slept on straw mattresses in three large unheated rooms on the first floor and in the attic. This arrangement corresponded to the pilgrimage season, which ran from spring—beginning with the Feast of the Finding of the Holy Cross (May 3)—until the end of summer, concluding with the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (September 14).

In addition to the three dormitories, the house offered “better” accommodations for noblewomen, who were not allowed to stay in the Jesuits’ residence, including a dry toilet on the upper floor—a garderobe—the remains of which (part of the projecting stone from the façade wall) have survived to this day. The house also preserves the original black kitchen and a Baroque bread oven.

After the suppression of the Jesuits in 1773, the former Jesuit priests in Římov continued their ministry. In 1777, the inn belonging to the state estate—confiscated from the Jesuits—was purchased by Martin Hengster for 1,500 florins. In 1780, Hengster bequeathed the house to his son-in-law, Jan Borový, and after Borový’s death in 1817, the property was inherited by his daughter Alžběta, married to František Čížkovský. The pilgrimage site of Římov—and with it the pilgrims’ house—thus survived its most difficult period, when the “enlightened” Emperor Joseph II sought to abolish pilgrimages and pilgrimage sites, including Římov, in 1785.

At that time, the pilgrims’ house was owned by the Čížkovský couple. Since they managed their own farm at the mill in Buzkov (now submerged beneath the Hněvkovice Reservoir), they leased the Římov inn to Antonín Ptáčník. In 1826, the house was struck by fire, and in the same year the Čížkovskýs tragically lost both of their sons. Consequently, they decided to sell the damaged building to Josef Spatzierer, the owner of the Římov manor and a major landowner, who had earlier acquired the former Jesuit residence in Římov.

Spatzierer had grand plans for Římov, which included the damaged pilgrims’ house. He intended to transform the former Jesuit residence, which he still had to share with the priests, into a representative residence and to turn the Římov estate into an industrial center. His plans to build a horse-drawn carriage route from České Budějovice to Linz via Římov were thwarted by unsuitable terrain, and the construction of an industrial complex on the Malše River also failed.

However, in 1821, he succeeded in evicting the Římov priest Václav Klas from his original apartment, to which he was still entitled within the residence even after the suppression of the Jesuit order. Under the promise that a new rectory would be built within 15 years, Klas was “temporarily” moved to inferior rooms in the Římov castle. Living under the same roof with the landowner proved intolerable for the priest. Ultimately, Václav Klas was glad to be transferred in 1827 to the rectory in Zhoř u Pacova.

His successor, Priest Jan Marchal, was completely evicted from the residence by the landowner Spatzierer in 1830. On August 15, 1830, Spatzierer moved both the rectory and the school, along with the teacher Jan Šimeček, from the castle into the aforementioned pilgrims’ house, which he had structurally adapted after the fire. At that time, a floor with two smaller rooms was added above the passageway containing the former butcher’s shop. The tavern on the ground floor and the black kitchen were converted into an apartment for the priest, connected by an internal staircase to two rooms on the upper floor above the passage. The larger dormitory for pilgrims in the southern part of the upper floor became a schoolroom, and the smaller dormitory and the room for noblewomen was transformed into the teacher’s apartment for Jan Šimeček and his family.

Spatzierer also committed in writing that until a new rectory was built, he would send the priest half a barrel of beer every year from the castle brewery, binding all future owners of the castle to this promise as well. However, Spatzierer eventually brought his estate to financial insolvency and in 1844 sold the Římov castle along with all its properties. The promise to build a new rectory was never fulfilled, and the beer barrels were forgotten. The priests of Římov were eventually moved even further onto a part of the “castle” garden, near one of the chapels of the Passion Trail (U Šimona), in the location where the planned rectory was supposed to stand.

The use of the former pilgrims’ house as both a rectory and a school was unsuitable from the beginning. Since the priest’s apartment was located under the schoolroom, priests complained about the constant noise. The school remained in the rectory until 1889, but even afterward, the priests of Římov had to share the large house with other tenants, who were accommodated there by the owners of the Římov residence. To this end, partitions were built on the first floor, which disrupted the internal wooden structure and beam ceilings. The current roof, dating from 1917, replaced the older shingled roof.

In the house, which besides the priest was inhabited by four other families, there were only two dry toilets and a shared well in the courtyard. Electricity was installed in 1929, and parts of these historic electrical installations are still in use today.

Plans to rebuild the inadequate rectory, which only became parish property in 1948, were thwarted by the establishment of the Communist regime. Even the donation of the rectory building to the parish by the former Jesuits residence´s owner Alois Dyk in 1948 was never registered in the land registry. Consequently, the Římov rectory was seized by the state under Communist control and was maintained only provisionally for decades. Although the parish priest (holding government permission for priestly ministry) could continue to live there, the Local National Committee placed additional tenants in the rectory.

After 1990, the rectory was finally registered as parish property, but years of neglected maintenance had already taken their toll on the building. In the following years, the parish still lacked the resources to repair the deteriorating church, let alone the rectory.

Since 2014, the rectory had been completely uninhabited. In 2018, the Budějovice Diocese renovated two rooms in the rectory for a potential future parish priest, who, due to the shortage of clergy, proved difficult to find. The uninhabited rectory with the two renovated rooms was in 2019 entrusted to the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) as the community’s residence, while the pilgrimage site and parish were placed under the administration of the FSSP by the Budějovice Diocese.

In 2022, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter purchased the house from the Roman Catholic Parish of Římov, as the FSSP was to be the investor for the necessary reconstruction of the building.