When the Order was founded, the primary mission of the Crusaders with the Red Star was hospitaller service: they served God through their neighbors. At that time, hospitaller service meant something different from today, when we think of a hospital simply as a place for the sick. For the contemporaries of St. Agnes, it was not only about caring for the sick. The religious also looked after orphans, the elderly and people with various disabilities, and provided shelter for pilgrims and students.
After the Hussite Wars, at a time of great shortage of priests, the Crusaders with the Red Star took over abandoned parishes in the Czech lands and devoted themselves intensively to pastoral care. To this day, the Order strives to fulfill both of these missions, spiritual and hospitaller. Throughout the Czech Republic and also in Vienna, the Order's priests serve in parish ministry. Although the Order no longer has its own hospital, it is the patron of a department of the Hospital of the Sisters of Mercy of St. Charles Borromeo in Prague, below Petřín Hill, providing funds for new equipment.
The Girls' Catholic Secondary School, which educates girls with various health and social disadvantages, is located in the Order's complex by Charles Bridge. The Crusaders' Home Care Service and the St. Agnes of Bohemia Home Hospice also operate at the same location. The Order's newest activity is the founding of the Juvenate, a residence for students attending universities in Prague. The Order's monastery in Český Krumlov houses the St. Agnes of Bohemia Secondary School of Restoration. Caring for cultural and historical heritage is, after all, an integral, albeit demanding, part of the Order's work.
