The Czech Republic's predominant Catholic Church has been forced to sell properties at vastly reduced prices in an effort to cope with falling attendance, writes Jonathan Luxmoore.

"We simply don't have the money to keep them," explained Martin Horalek, spokesman for the Prague-based bishops' conference, whose Church saw its membership drop from 41 to 27 per cent of the 10.2 million-strong population between 1991 and 2001. "Some priests are spending most of the time just maintaining their churches," Mr Horalek said. The Church had been compelled to offer cut prices to private buyers, since most buildings required extensive investment.

Around 200 churches, monasteries and convents were returned to the Church in the 1990s, after the end of Communist rule. A Plzen Diocese website, www.fary.net, has listed several dozen properties for sale over the past year, ranging from a former parish house in Myto priced at just 185,000 crowns (£3,700), to a monastery at Chotesov with 6,500 acres of land which is on the market for £54,000.