Czechs at odds over historic church

A shoe scrapes on stone near the tomb of Good King Wenceslas and winter breaths curl against the stained glass, but few of the tourists meandering through St. Vitus Cathedral sense the underlying battle between the secular and the sacred.

Tomas Holub does. "The state should own this church," said Holub, a pilgrim with a nationalist streak standing in a dim light near the altar. "It's the symbol of the Czech nation. Our kings are buried in crypts below, and you can feel their spirits. It changes the dynamics of this place."

The legal struggle between the state and the Catholic Church over ownership of the cathedral is a troubling tour through the ages. . .

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