We continue looking at several interesting and beautiful churches located in the centre of Prague. Eight churches in Old Town and three rotundas had been highlighted in Prague Churches: Part I. Several New Town churches are highlighted in this post and more churches located in other areas in Prague are in Part III.
CHURCHES IN NEW TOWN
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Church of Our Lady of the Snows (Kostel Panny Marie Sněžné)
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Cathedral Church of Sts. Cyril and Methodius (Katedrální Chrám Sv. Cyrila a Metoděje)
The church in its present incarnation was built from 1730 to 1740, one of the architects being the well known Kilián Ignác Dientzenhofer.
Prior to that, was an earlier church and it has been said that St.
Methodius dedicated an even earlier chapel at the same location. A mere
43 years after the rebuilding in 1740, the church was closed due to
Joseph II's purges. It was reopened in the 1930s as a Greek Orthodox
church, and still is today. However, what makes this church well known
to outsiders and important to the Czechs was the event at the church in
1942 - when 3 parachutists and 4 partisans made this their last stand,
pursued by the German army for their involvement in the assassination of
Reinhard Heydrich. The church officials who hid the partisans also paid
with their lives. There is a memorial to the 7 and an exhibition on the
event and it is possible to visit the crypt where the partisans hid.More information>
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Located
on Charles Square, the church was built in the second half of the 17th
century for the Jesuits and dedicated to the founder of the Order, St
Ignatius of Loyola. If the facade of the church looks familiar, it is
because the architect was Carlo Lurago, who also designed the Church of
St. Salvator which is prominently located near Charles Bridge. It is
another gem of early Baroque in Prague and possibly one of the largest
Jesuit complexes in Europe. The front facade is notable for its statues
of various saints and at the top on the tympanum is the statue of St.
Ignatius with an aureole (larger than the one of Jesus in the interior).
The statues were by sculptor Matěj Václav Jäckel, three of whose other
works are found on Charles Bridge (one is the statues of St Anne with a
young Virgin Mary). The adjoining building is a former Jesuit dormitory,
now a teaching hospital. Church service are still held here.
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Church of St. John of Nepomuk On The Rock (Kostel Sv. Jana Nepomuckého Na Skalce)
Slightly off the southern end of Charles Square is this small but unique Baroque church. Designed by Kilián Ignác
Dientzenhofer and built in the 1730s, the church is highly distinctive
in that its towers are tilted toward one another and the church nave is
octagonal in shape. The double staircase was added later in the 1780s.
The interior is decorated in the Rococo style and there is a gilded
statue, created by sculptor Jan Brokoff in 1682, which was the model
for the bronze statue of St. John of Nepomuk currently standing on
Charles Bridge. No centuries of dramatic or tragic events here - just a
beautiful, unique and compact church. Open for services only.
More information>
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Right
across the street from Church of St. John of Nepomuk on the Rock is a
monastery (and church) founded by Charles IV in 1347. It was to be a
Benedictine order using Slavonic liturgy, to unify Slavic people and as a
means to bridge schisms between Western and Eastern European churches.
To serve this function, a group of monks were brought in from an area in
present day Croatia. Charles IV donated to the monastery the Reims Gospel,
a text in Glagolitic alphabet and Cyrillic and said to be written in
part by St. Procopius. It soon became a centre of learning and art. The
future reformist preacher Jan Hus was a student here. The Hussites took
over in 1419 with the monastery becoming ultraquist and remained so
until late 16th century. In the 17th to 20th centuries, it was back to
the Catholic denomination until the Communists used it as a science
academy. There used to be two towers but these were destroyed by Allied
bombing in 1945 - their replacement made in the 1960s are the
distinctive cross spires seen today. Within the monastery, are a series
of Gothic murals depicting Biblical themes. There used to be 85 of these
murals but some have been destroyed or become faded or blurred.
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Church of St. Stephen (Kostel Sv. Štepána)
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| Photo source: www.waymarking. com |
Founded
by Charles IV in the mid 14th century, it was to be the second most
important church in New Town. By the early 1400s, the church was largely
completed. It received a major makeover in the 1870s, designed by Josef
Mocker. The tower has a Gothic high-tent roof with spires at the top
and on the corners, a design by Josef Mocker - which is a similar roof
redesign made on the Powder Tower in Old Town and on the two bridge
towers flanking Charles Bridge. Within the church are numerous Baroque
era paintings and a valuable Renaissance era painting of St. Stephen,
Virgin Mary and Jesus. Some curiosities include: Czech composer Bedřich Smetana was married at the church and the renown sculptor of Baroque statuary, Matyáš Bernard Braun was buried there (although the coffin could not be found). The Rotunda of St. Longinus is just nearby.
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Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and St. Charles the Great (Charlemagne) in Karlov
(Kostel Nanebevzetí Panny Marie a Sv. Karla Velikého na Karlově)
Another church
founded by Charles IV, in 1350 as part of an Augustinian monastery. The
church was modeled after the final resting place of Charlemagne, the
chapel at Aachen Cathedral in Germany. One of the intentions for
building this and other grand churches and buildings was to elevate
Prague's status to another level, it being the capital of the Holy Roman
Empire at the time. The original structure was Gothic and construction
was completed in the late Renaissance period. The marvelous cross-rib
vaulting in the central hexagonal nave forms a symmetrical star pattern
and was completed in 1575. In the 17th and 18th centuries, additions and
reconstructions were made, turning it into a predominantly Baroque
style church. It is today part of the Catholic church. The former
monastery building adjoining the church now houses a police museum. Tours of the church interior are available on Sunday afternoons.
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Church of St. Apollinaire (Kostel Sv. Apolináře)
This
church was established by Charles IV and built in the second half of
the 14th century on Větrov hill in New Town. The originally Gothic
church was rebuilt in Baroque style in the 17th to 18th centuries, and
then in a purist Gothic style in the 19th century designed by
Josef Mocker. There is a comprehensive write up on the church's history here.
The church seems to be the intersection point of two lines joining four
other churches (all built in the 14th century after the establishment
of New Town) - to form a cross. It is possible this layout was ordered
by Charles IV as blessing to his new town. Nearby is the Apollinaire
maternity hospital, which acquired its name from the church - the
hospital itself has a fascinating neo-Gothic, neo-Renaissance architecture.
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