Religious statute sent to Norway for safekeeping returning to Plzeň after half century

A statue of the Madonna and Child sent to Norway for safekeeping during the communist period is set to be returned to Plzeň’s Cathedral of St. Bartholomew on Wednesday. A priest there asked visiting Norwegian woman named Gerd Qvam to take the sculpture – a copy of a piece made in the 14th century – back to her country at the end of the 1950s for fear that it might be destroyed or confiscated. It is being returned with the help of the Norwegian Embassy in Prague and Norway’s Barrat Due Institute of Music.

Author: Ian Willoughby