A Hive of Devout Souls | Religious Confraternities in the Culture of Early Modern Moravia

José García Hidalgo Child Jesus with the instruments of the Passion, turn of the 17th and 18th century, Znojmo, St. Nicholas Church.

The word “confraternity” may today imply a closed group of people in the form of a secret society, inclined to mysticism, which strives to pursue its goals, using not always entirely legal means. In the past, however, the term “confraternity” certainly did not have such a pejorative meaning. In the Baroque period, religious confraternities played an important part in society and culture. The repeat of the successful exhibition which opened in the Olomouc Archdiocesan Museum in 2010 is intended to highlight the role these confraternities played.