Church of Saint Michael the Archangel () is a church situated in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

. It was built in Romanesque and Gothic style and later rebuilt in

Baroque style The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from the early 17th century until the 1750s. It followed Renaissance art and Mannerism and preceded the Rococo (i ...

. The priest and church reformer

Jan Hus Jan Hus (; ; 1369 – 6 July 1415), sometimes anglicized as John Hus or John Huss, and referred to in historical texts as ''Iohannes Hus'' or ''Johannes Huss'', was a Czechs, Czech theologian and philosopher who became a Church reformer and t ...

celebrated masses in the church. The church and adjacent monastery were disestablished during the reforms of the Emperor Joseph II in the 18th century. Later, the buildings served as a warehouse. In the

crypt A crypt (from Greek κρύπτη (kryptē) ''wikt:crypta#Latin, crypta'' "Burial vault (tomb), vault") is a stone chamber beneath the floor of a church or other building. It typically contains coffins, Sarcophagus, sarcophagi, or Relic, religiou ...

, there are buried rectors of the Prague's University.

History

The Church of St. Michael () in Opatovice – V Jirachářích, originally a Romanesque structure, is older than the New Town ( Nové Město) itself, which started to evolve in the place of the fields and meadows, settlements and villages in 1348. It was founded at the same time as the settlement of Opatovice and a rectory stood at the site during the reign of

John of Bohemia John of Bohemia, also called the Blind or of Luxembourg (; ; ; 10 August 1296 – 26 August 1346), was the Count of Luxembourg from 1313 and King of Bohemia from 1310 and titular King of Poland. He is well known for having died while fighting ...

. It belonged to the Hussites during the Hussite Wars (1419), became the property of the Lutherans a hundred years later (1524), and then the Catholics after the

Battle of White Mountain The Battle of White Mountain (; ) was an important battle in the early stages of the Thirty Years' War. It led to the defeat of the Bohemian Revolt and ensured Habsburg control for the next three hundred years. It was fought on 8 November 16 ...

(1621). It was then bought by the German Lutheran Church in 1790 after being abandoned. The German choir had a picture of

Martin Luther Martin Luther ( ; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, Theology, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and former Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. Luther was the seminal figure of the Reformation, Pr ...

created for the side window of the church in 1915. After the Second World War, the confiscated church was passed to the Prague choir of the Slovak Evangelical Church. The Gothic structure of the church dates back to the last 25 years of the 14th century. It was expanded and added to on a number of occasions, with its final re-Gothicisation dating back to 1914–1915 under the leadership of builder Štěpán Koloschek. An oblong nave was created with a flat ceiling and a prismatic tower to the west. The irregular presbytery is distinctive for its ornate vaulting. The asymmetric three-naved structure is externally unified by an orbiting, Baroque, main cornice. The Baroque extension of a staircase to the gallery sits next to the southern Gothic nave. The structure comes to a peak with its slender prismatic tower, which has Gothic core. The portal from the north is fitted with a fanlight, whose tracery was made up of a number of stylized nuns. The late-Rococo main altar (around 1770) remains the Gothic fittings. This was originally dedicated to St. Michael.

References

* {{Authority control Churches in Prague 1 Baroque church buildings in the Czech Republic Baroque architecture in Prague Gothic architecture in the Czech Republic