Did the Czech president secretly send parts of the treasure of St. Vitus Cathedral to Germany, including the Coronation Cross of Bohemia, a relic from the 14th century and one of the most valuable items in the treasury? No, that's not true: Czech President Petr Pavel only ceremonially opened the exhibition in Dresden, but the treasure was lent by the Metropolitan Chapter, the presbytery, which owns the treasure and is also responsible for the liturgical services in St. Vitus Cathedral at the Prague Castle. Both the president's office and the chapter confirmed this in e-mails to Lead Stories.
The claim appeared in a video (archived here) published on TikTok on March 24, 2024. The text superimposed on the video reads in Czech, translated by Lead Stories staff, "Communist Pavek does not understand what Easter is" or "STB henchman secretly takes the crown jewel from our homeland." STB is a former communist intelligence service and Pavek is an alleged code name for Petr Pavel as its agent. The person speaking in the video says about the government and President Petr Pavel:
They are destroying our country humanly, economically, threatening its security and imprisoning those it dislikes. We might think they could do no worse to our nation and state, but the opposite is true. In order to humiliate our country in every way, they had the most valuable part of the crown jewels taken to neighbouring Germany, the golden coronation cross of Charles the Fourth.
This is what the post looked like on TikTok at the time of writing:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Mon Apr 15 07:20:28 2024 UTC)
The person speaking in the video is Vaclav Hrabak (archived here), a homeopath and anti-vaxxer, a founder of the "anti-globalist and apolitical" initiative Narodni Proud (archived here), which proclaims itself to be anti-EU and anti-NATO on its website. The TikTok video above is an excerpt from a longer video on the Narodni Proud YouTube channel (archived here) about the coronation cross that was sent to Germany in March 2024 before Easter. The YouTube video also includes a link to sign an "Appeal for the Return of the Coronation Cross" (archived here). Hrabak's other claims, not linked to the treasure, that the government and Petr Pavel are destroying the country are beyond the scope of this fact-check.
Neither the Czech president, Petr Pavel, nor the Czech government were involved in sending parts of the St. Vitus treasure to an exhibition in Dresden, Germany, according to e-mailed statements from both the president's office and the Metropolitan Chapter of St. Vitus Cathedral, which is the owner of the treasure. The Chapter (archived here) said in a statement received on April 11, 2024, that the exhibition "Fragments of Memory at the Lipsiusbau Art Gallery" was prepared "in cooperation with the Metropolitan Chapter as the owner of the St. Vitus Treasure and the State Art Collections in Dresden, which requested the loan." All legal requirements for sending the treasure for the exhibition have been met, the statement said.
The president´s office also responded to a query from Lead Stories by e-mail on April 12, 2024, stating that the exhibition in Dresden and the treasure are not a matter that concerns the president´s office or the Prague Castle Administration. The objects were loaned to Germany by the Metropolitan Chapter, which owns the treasure, Vojtech Seliga, a spokesman for the president, said in the e-mail (archived here). The president's office is working to ensure that the treasure will be kept in a representative place in Prague Castle in the future, Seliga said.
The Czech President Petr Pavel became a focus of disinformation campaigns regarding the treasure, falsely blaming him for sending it to Germany, after he ceremonially opened the Fragments of Memory exhibition (archived here), which included the Coronation Cross of Bohemia and other parts of the St. Vitus treasure, on March 15, 2024, in the Lipsius Kunsthalle in Dresden. The exhibition also drew attention since for the first time the treasure has been showcased outside of the Czech Republic, as stated in the statement from The Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (archived here), a museum complex comprising 15 museums, from March 12, 2024.
In addition to opening the exhibition in Dresden, Petr Pavel also met with Michael Kretschmer, the Minister-President of Saxony, on the same day and visited a company that produces electronic chips during his working visit, according to Petr Pavel's official program posted on the castle's website (archived here).
The current Czech President Petr Pavel, a former Chief of Staff of the Czech Army who has also chaired NATO's Military Committee in the past, has been scrutinized by the press during the presidential campaign for his membership in the Communist Party (archived here) before the Velvet Revolution in 1989, an issue often brought up by anti-government trolls who question his character for switching allegiances on social media.
Pavel has also been often falsely trolled on social media as a former communist secret intelligence - or STB - agent with the codename Pavek, including the TikTok video above. That claim is not true as he received a lustration certificate (archived here) from the former Czechoslovak Federal Ministry of the Interior in 1992 stating that he was not registered as such in the STB files. Further details on Pavel's past can be found here (archived here) and are beyond the scope of this fact-check.
