St. Cyril and Method (Prague)

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Church of St. Cyril and Method
inner space

The Church of St. Cyril and Method ( Kostel sv. Cyrila a Metoděje , until 1935 Karl Borromeo Church ) is the main church of the Prague Eparchy of the Orthodox Church of the Czech Countries and Slovakia in the Czech capital Prague and a symbolic place of the Czechoslovak resistance against Nazi rule .

location

The church is located in Prague's New Town, in the former Zderaz district, near Charles Square .

Building history

It was built between 1730 and 1736 according to plans by Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer . In contrast to other Prague baroque churches, their architectural style appears monumental and does not show their sometimes glamorous design.

Place of resistance against National Socialism

Today the church is a symbol of the Czech resistance against National Socialism . The resistance fighters, who on May 27, 1942, carried out the assassination attempt on Reinhard Heydrich , the representative of the Reich Protector in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, hid in the church . On June 17, 1942, the assassins were betrayed after numerous interrogations. On the following day, on the orders of Major General of the Police and Commander of the Waffen-SS Karl von Treuenfeld , the church was cordoned off extensively by SS units of around 700 men. A little later, an SS commando began to storm the church.

In response to the attack, the Secret State Police and the SS had completely destroyed the village of Lidice on June 10th . All male residents were shot and the women and children were deported to concentration camps. Karl von Treuenfeld was also responsible for this action. The most senior Orthodox clergyman in Prague , Bishop Gorazd , was arrested. Together with three employees, he was sentenced to death in a show trial on September 3, 1942 and shot one day later.

In the church crypt there is now a memorial to commemorate these events.

Retirement home

To the south of Karl Borromäus Church, Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer and Paul Ignaz Bayer built a retirement home for Roman Catholic priests between 1730 and 1736. This retirement house, house no.9, was closed in 1783 in the course of the Josephine reforms and since the division of Charles University in Prague in 1882 into a German and a Czech-speaking university, it housed the Czech Technical University in Prague , until it was rebuilt on Karlsplatz in Prague related.

See also

Web links

Commons : St. Cyril and Methodius Orthodox Church (Prague)  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jiří Otter : Through Prague on the trail of the Bohemian Reformation. Kalich Verlag Praha 2002, ISBN 80-7017-565-6 , p. 78.
  2. ↑ Miroslav Ivanov : The attack on Heydrich. from the Czech by Hugo Kaminsky, with 44 illustrations and 6 maps, Augsburg 2000, ISBN 3 8289 0393 2

Coordinates: 50 ° 4 ′ 33 ″  N , 14 ° 25 ′ 1 ″  E