St Ivan’s Cave

St Ivan, Bohemia’s first hermit, lived here. His supposed remains lie in a Baroque sarcophagus in the monastery Church of St John the Baptist and St Ivan the Hermit. According to legend he was a Croatian nobleman who lived in this cave in the late ninth and early tenth centuries and was discovered by Prince Bořivoj while hunting. In Serbo-Croatian, Ivan means John, explaining the place name. The cave became a place of veneration in the tenth century. The cult peaked in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and his tomb became a popular pilgrimage site. The mineral spring Ivanka, rising from the cave, was credited with miraculous powers. Several passages have been cut into the cave, where relics of the saint have long been shown: St Ivan’s bed, carved by Croatians in remembrance; a stone with stepped hollows supposedly made by his fervent kneeling; and the stone with which he was beaten near Hodyně. Two holes also pierce the rock. One arose when Ivan leaned against it and it yielded to avoid hurting him; the other is in the ceiling, through which he drove out evil spirits.