The Saints Cyril and Methodius Cathedral in Nové Město,

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

, the Czech Republic, is the principal

Czech and Slovak Orthodox Church The Orthodox Church of the Czech Lands and Slovakia ( cs, Pravoslavná církev v Českých zemích a na Slovensku; sk, Pravoslávna cirkev v českých krajinách a na Slovensku) is a self-governing body of the Eastern Orthodox Church that territ ...

History

Early history

According to oral tradition, the site where Saints Cyril and Methodius Cathedral stands was the site of a small church built by

Bořivoj I, Duke of Bohemia Bořivoj I (, la, Borzivogius, c. 852 – c. 889) was the first historically documented Duke of Bohemia and progenitor of the Přemyslid dynasty. His reign over the Duchy of Bohemia is believed to have started about the year 870, but in this er ...

, and dedicated by Saint Methodius himself. This link is based historically upon early and continuing reference to the name "Na Zderaze" for the existing church building. In 1091, the Czech lord Zderad was killed during the siege of Brno, and was buried in the earlier church which was near

. Zderad's name was then immortalized in the name of the street "Na Zderaze" which is adjacent to the cathedral, thus establishing a connection to this site that was hallowed by St. Methodius. From 1115, the church of

Saints Peter and Paul Peter and Paul may refer to: * Saint Peter and Paul the Apostle considered together ** Feast of Saints Peter and Paul, 29 June in the Catholic liturgical calendar ** St. Peter and St. Paul's Church (disambiguation) * ''Peter and Paul'' (film), 19 ...

stood on the site of the present church, around which the Knights of the Cross built the Zderazsky monastery. During the

Hussite Wars The Hussite Wars, also called the Bohemian Wars or the Hussite Revolution, were a series of civil wars fought between the Hussites and the combined Catholic forces of Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund, the Papacy, Eur ...

, the church was largely destroyed, leaving only a part of the choir standing. In 1705, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Prague, Breuner, established a retirement home for priests on the site of the monastery next to which a church was later built.

World War II

In 1942, during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, the cathedral was where a

last stand A last stand is a military situation in which a body of troops holds a defensive position in the face of overwhelming and virtually insurmountable odds. Troops may make a last stand due to a sense of duty; because they are defending a tactic ...

was made by SOE-trained Czech and Slovak agents involved in the assassination of '' SS-Obergruppenführer''

Reinhard Heydrich Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich ( ; ; 7 March 1904 – 4 June 1942) was a high-ranking German SS and police official during the Nazi era and a principal architect of the Holocaust. He was chief of the Reich Security Main Office (inclu ...

. SS and Police Leader of Waffen-SS

Karl Fischer von Treuenfeld Karl Freiherr von Fischer-Treuenfeld (31 March 1885 – 7 June 1946) was a German Waffen-SS commander. A brigade commander during the Nazi era, during the invasion of the Soviet Union, he commanded the 2 SS Infantry Brigade and the 1 SS Infant ...

commanded the Nazi forces that stormed the church on 18 June 1942. After a fierce gun battle, two of the Czechoslovaks were killed and the rest committed suicide to avoid capture. There is a museum in the church crypt dedicated to them as national heroes.

References

Footnotes

Sources

External links

* {{Authority control ''This article incorporates text from " Ss. Cyril and Methodius Cathedral" at OrthodoxWiki under a CC BY-SA 2.5 license.'' Cathedrals in the Czech Republic Churches in Prague Eastern Orthodox cathedrals History museums in the Czech Republic Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer buildings Museums in Prague Operation Anthropoid World War II museums