The Gryspek citizen association was established on 14th May, 2008 by a group of Kralovice citizens. They didn´t like the bad state of the church in Kralovice. A lot of us can remember that the Renaissance dominant feature was in a pitiful state, which didn´t fit its architectonic, cultural, religious, historical and social significance of this sight. Throughout the 10 years of our association activity, a lot of changes, which we took part in, have proceeded.

... we must do something with it...

Preparation work, which was necessary for the beginning of restoration of the church in Kralovice, was carried out. These were: constructional-historical research, making the building project, restoration research and processing of restoration objectives, carrying out standpoints of the National Monument Institute and the Department of the Regional Development and Land Planning and the Building  Authority of the Townhall of Kralovice to individual planned restoration and building pieces of work.
Restoration research and plans which were necessary for the next procedure of the church restoration were financed by our association from money collection and sponsor donation.

Since 2008, significant changes, visible on the church and its surroundings, have proceeded. It was the rain drainage, which took water from the church, in 2008. It resulted in stabilization of the building. 2009
was a very important year. We managed to join our church into the Programme of the architectonical heritage rescue of the Cultural Ministry of the Czech Republic. Finishing of the change of roofing and tinsmith work on the roof and gutters, reconstruction of the sgraffiti facade on the tower, the north
staircase extension, presbytery, chapel and the south staircase extension, renovation of the brick facade on the south side of the main church nave and restoration of four stained glass windows on the south side were gradually financed from this programme.

Members of the association have worked out several successful applications for grants from the Programme of the country development of the Ministry of Agricalture: in 2011 "Making the tomb of the Gryspek family accessible in the church in Kralovice", in 2014 "the exposition of the Gryspek family in chapel of St. Peter and Paul´s Church in Kralovice". The application for the project "Restoration work in the chapel of the holy God in St. Peter and Paul´s Church" was also successful. We could apply for this grant in the Czech-German fond of the future thanks to our contacts with the Griessenbeck family, distant relatives of the Czech Gryspek family. They were our partners on the German side. In 2014, we managed to get a grant from the Disposition Fond of the Programme of the cross-border cooperation Bohemia-Bavaria for the project "the 1st period of the microclimatic modification in the tomb of the Gryspek family".

We have managed to get 9 090 545,-CZK for the restoration work throughout the 10 years of existence. Between 1997 and 2008, it was 4 616 278,-CZK. It means that it has been spent 13 606 823,-CZK on the
restoration work in the church in Kralovice.

We cannot only boast of our successes because there have been problems, defeats and complications throughout our activity as well. At the beginning of 2012, restoration of coffins was carried out. It was
financed by Roma and Walter von Griessenbeck. A team of restorers from the Náprstek Museum in Prague carried out a big research and restoration of the mummies. They could be replaced into the reconstructed tomb. At the beginning of March 2012, the tomb was festively opened to the public. The system of microclimatic observation in the tomb showed very bad numbers in 2012. It was necessary to respond to this situation very quickly because the mummies could have been destroyed by the high humidity. That´s why the oldest mummies in the Czech Republic were moved to the rooms in the vicarage. The whole situation was caused by a low-quality building project for the reconstruction of the tomb and because several interventions proceeded either directly in the tomb or around the church, which later caused the problems. While carrying out the first stage, we found out that the ingenious ventilation system  created by our ancestors in the 16th century was not in function. It was caused because the floor was made higher, the ventilation corridor leading towards the Kralovice stream was interrupted while building canalization and the bed of the stream was replaced to 80m in the west
direction.

The executed building work made the situation better but not as we had expected and we could put the mummies back on their places. After executing the next step, which was installation of the overpressure
ventilation, the microclimate in the tomb started to stabilize and in June 2016 the mummies were moved back to the tomb.

Other failures have been the grant applications which weren´t approved. These were: a grant application to the Integrated regional operational programme for restoring the painting of the main nave and the
equipment in 2013 and a grant application to the EHP fond (Norwegian funds) for restoring the main alter and the presbytery painting.

We have been cooperating with the Town of Kralovice very well. It financially takes part in reconstruction and restoration in the church. It got a grant in 2015 and carried out the rebuilding of underground services, roads and parking places around the church. New streetlights, a ventilation corridor survey and its further finishing and the overpressure ventilation of the tomb were partly financed by the town.

...for the public...

A very important part of our activities is the operation of the Gryspek family exposition in the Chapel of the Holy God, which was opened on 27^th Juny, 2014. A part of the exposition is a possibility to have a look into the Gryspek tomb. 13 volunteer guides, who are members of our citizen association, have been operating here. They guide the tourists every Saturday afternoon throughout the touristic season. Since 2014, 1964 people have visited this new tourist sight in our town.

...so that people know about us...

The promotion of St. Peter and Paul´s Church plays an important part of our activities. We have published promotion materials "St. Peter and Paul´s Church in Kralovice" and "Mummies of Kralovice". We have financially taken part in publishing a book of Dr. Bukačová "St. Peter and Paul´s Church" (a paperback edition) and we have published a paperback reprinting of this book. We have managed to have a replica of Florián Gryspek´s medal made for commercial purposes. We have also had a postcard and bags with the association logo made.

We regularly inform the public about the activities of the association in "Kralovický obzor" (the local magazine). Not only "Mladá fronta dnes", "Právo" and "Plzeňský deník" (the newspapers) have published
articles about important events in our church but also the local television ZAK has reported about it. There have been several programmes about restoration work and activities of the association on the Czech radio. We could listen to a nicely composed programme of Tamara Salcmanová about the history of the Gryspek family on the Vltava Chanel and an interesting programme on "Český rozhlas 2" by Stanislav Motl from the series "Footprints, facts, secrets...": Boom and fall of the Gryspek Family. The biggest success has obviously been a report by Svatava Pátková on ČT1 "Toulavá kamera".  We have a lot of supporters who have been visiting our website and facebook profile. Apart from that, we have taken part in several lectures and seminars aimed at activities of volunteer organisations in conservation where we have also presented our work.

...it´s not possible without money...

...a message from the past to the future...