Church of

Saint Michael the Archangel Michael (; he, מִיכָאֵל, lit=Who is like El od, translit=Mīḵāʾēl; el, Μιχαήλ, translit=Mikhaḗl; la, Michahel; ar, ميخائيل ، مِيكَالَ ، ميكائيل, translit=Mīkāʾīl, Mīkāl, Mīkhāʾīl), a ...

is a church situated in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...

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

. It was built in Romanesque and

Gothic style Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths ** Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken ...

and later rebuilt in

Baroque style The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

. The priest and church reformer

Jan Hus Jan Hus (; ; 1370 – 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 Czech theologian and philosopher who became a Church reformer and the insp ...

celebrated masses in the church. The church and adjacent monastery were disestablished during the reforms of the Emperor

Joseph II Joseph II (German: Josef Benedikt Anton Michael Adam; English: ''Joseph Benedict Anthony Michael Adam''; 13 March 1741 – 20 February 1790) was Holy Roman Emperor from August 1765 and sole ruler of the Habsburg lands from November 29, 1780 un ...

in the 18th century. Later, the buildings served as a warehouse. In the crypt, there are buried rectors of the Prague's University.

History

The Church of St. Michael ( cs, kostel svatého Michaela) 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. 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 ( cz, Bitva na Bílé hoře; german: Schlacht am Weißen Berg) 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 n ...

(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, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Lutherani ...

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