This afternoon, I braved the subzero temperatures to a little more mapping of the Earth energy lines here in Brno. I started last year at the Castle – Špilberk – above me where I found three energy lines passing through or actually around the castle site. Periodically, I get the dowsing rods out and go looking to see where they go.

What has surprised me a lot is that, so far, churches lie perfectly aligned on these lines. One east-west line I discovered passed straight down the knave of the St. Wenceslas Orthodox Cathedral. Yet , that church was only consecrated in 1931. It has a Russian-style cupola, covered in gold leaf in 2003 and a set of melodic bells that chime each hour. It is only a few hundred meters away from my home.

I suspect, though have not yet mapped it there to prove it, that in the other direction, this line will also pass through St. Peter and St. Paul Cathedral on Petrov Hill. I will probably try to confirm that this week. About this church, I learned the following….

“The cathedral – nicknamed Petrov, like the hill – dates back to the 11th and 12th centuries, when a Romanesque chapel was built on the top of a hill. At the end of the 12th century, a small church with an apse and a crypt was built there, and in the 13th century it was expanded into a Romanesque basilica, the remains of which were discovered during an archaeological study of the cathedral at the end of the 20th century; the site is now open to the public. The church was then rebuilt in the early Gothic style and made a provost church and a collegiate chapter. The artist behind the 18th-century Baroque interior was architect Mořic Grimm. The current main altar was created at the end of the 19th century. The ‘Kapistránka’ pulpit located on the left side of the hall is a remarkable piece of art; it is named after the Franciscan friar St John of Capistrano, who preached in Brno in the second half of 1451. The bells on the cathedral towers ring at 11 am instead of at noon in remembrance of a legendary trick that Jean-Louis Raduit de Souches played on the Swedish army as it lay siege to Brno. As the story goes, Swedish general Torstenson claimed he would abandon the siege if his army failed to conquer the city before the bells started to ring at noon. For this reason, de Souches decided to have the bells ring one hour earlier.“

The other east-west line bends south from the Castle and goes straight down the knave of a small Chapel on my street. This one is just a little older….

“The Bethlehem Church is located on Pellicova Street on the southern slope of Špilberk Hill, in the places where the stairs from Pekařská Street open. The church was built on the initiative of evangelicals in the years 1894 – 1895 and became the first evangelical church in Brno , in which it was preached exclusively in Czech . Its construction, under the direction of the Brno builder Alber, was financed by donations and public collections. On the facade of the church there is an inscription “We preach Christ” , which is the first Czech inscription on a public building in Brno . At present, the church is used by the congregation of the Czech Brethren Evangelical Church.“

Today I headed off in the other direction down that line. I wasn’t at all surprised to find it passes straight down the knave of another church – St. Augustines – a Roman Catholic church built in the functionalist style in the years 1932–1934 according to the project of the architect Vladimír Fischer. Again, I wondered how this could be so?

I had intended to do more today but it is so cold and windy, I needed to head home for a hot cup of Tea after an hour and a half of walking. But again, who sited these churches with their knaves along energy lines????