Legend has it that pagans once channeled a stream toward the sanctuary of St. Michael in order to destroy it. But the archangel sent down a bolt of lightning that carved a new streambed and thus saved the temple.

In Prague's Old Town, a group of Christians are trying to save another of St. Michael's shrines they say is in grave danger — this time from crass commercialism.

Nearly 100 members of the Student Initiative to Rescue the Church of St. Michael marched in protest May 30 and June 7. What's angered them is the National Library's sale of the 800-year-old St. Michael's Church to a private developer in July 2005. The church, on a back street off Michalská, had been an inactive ruin until 1995.

As a result of the sale, techno parties and strip shows have filled the building where Jan Hus preached, stoking simmering resentment from historians and religious people who accuse the state of neglecting cultural treasures.

The Catholic Church and the state, in fact, are selling or giving away many of the hundreds of unused churches that dot the Czech Republic, derelict buildings that are the legacy of anticlerical campaigns and property seizures by the communists during the Cold War. And, by the score, new owners are turning the once-sacred ground into secular sites.

Ruined

The Czech Catholic Church, for its part, has little interest in bringing these churches, including St. Michael's, back into the fold. Decreasing membership and fewer donations have strapped the finances to such an extent that the church is unable to even care for the dilapidated buildings it already owns.

The church does not have accurate statistics on how many properties are falling into disrepair because each diocese keeps separate information, and some, such as Hradec Králové, are still assessing the damage. But the crumbling churches throughout the eight dioceses in the Czech Republic certainly number several hundred.

Of the 437 churches in the Plzeň Diocese, for example, 150 remain unused and are literally falling apart, said spokeswoman Alena Ouředníková. The diocese classifies 51 percent of these as "ruins," in "emergency status" or "very bad" and on their way to becoming ruins.

The church estimates it needs another 68 million Kč ($3 million) a year to maintain places of worship in that diocese alone, according to Plzeň General Vicar Adrián Pavel Zemek.

'Lack of piety'

As churches continue to age without care, people interested in keeping the historic buildings from ruin are left with no other option than to sell them for secular purposes. People like Miriam Natoufová, the main organizer of the St. Michael's protest and a Christian art student at the Catholic Theological Faculty at Charles University, are facing an increasingly difficult battle.

"The recent ownership has shown a lack of piety," Natoufová said of the Old Town church. "There was no discussion about selling the building, and we want people to know what's being done."

Walking en masse from St. Michael's, near Old Town Square, to the Culture Ministry in Malá Strana with signs such as, "Kostel není postel" or "A church is not a bed," protesters recently demanded the padlocked building be put back into the hands of the state.

The group has gathered more than 1,000 signatures and is planning another protest June 21.

Many dioceses have simply given away churches to towns in the hopes that new owners will be able to care for them — the Plzeň Diocese has given away 40 over the past few years. Most buildings are converted into hotels or concert halls. But Culture Ministry spokeswoman Ludmila Kadrnková says that the St. Michael's situation is unique.

Mystery tour

All church property was seized by the state in 1948 as part of the mass nationalization by the communists. The National Library — then the State Library of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic — became responsible for St. Michael's Church 36 years later and found the building in ruins.

After the 1989 revolution, the library had neither the money nor the resources to rebuild the church. Library officials decided the only way to save the building, listed by the Culture Ministry as a cultural heritage site, was to lease it in the hopes that the tenants would repair it.

The new tenants, Kontakt Moravia, hoped to turn the building into a bank but when that plan fell through the company changed its name to Michal Praha, refurbished the church and turned it into the controversial tourist attraction St. Michael's Mystery — a multimedia tour of 14 bizarre magical scenes organized around a theme of Franz Kafka's nightmares.

When tourist season waned, the church housed private parties that featured dance music, bar service and, protesters allege, strip shows.

"The church was a historical Gothic monument," said Mojmír Horyna, a professor at the Art History Institute at Charles University. "And it was transformed into art kitsch, full of banalities."

Little recourse

The way government officials see it, selling unused churches to private interests is the only way of saving the buildings, regardless of their subsequent use.

"People who protest are hardly interested in 'rescuing' the building," said National Library Director Vlastimil Ježek. "The former church was saved by a private investor when the building was on the verge of collapsing."

Indeed, St. Michael's owner Jerry Nowikovsky renovated the church as a tenant for nearly double the 46 million Kč for which he recently purchased the church.

Nowikovsky could not be reached despite several attempts to contact him through his attorney, Jana Hüblerová.

Kadrnková said churches sold or given away by the Catholic Church or the state are still controlled by laws regulating historic structures, but those laws place no conditions on how the buildings are to be used.

But some argue that if the sacred buildings are not being used for their original purpose, they would rather see them razed.

"According to law, the monuments should be used in accordance with their original purpose," said Horyna, the historian. "The state should demand the fulfillment of that law."