St. Nicholas in the old town

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Prague (5350712219) .jpg
Construction year: 1732-1735
Inauguration: 1737
Architect : Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer
Style elements : Baroque
Location: 50 ° 5 '16 "  N , 14 ° 25' 12"  E Coordinates: 50 ° 5 '16 "  N , 14 ° 25' 12"  E
Purpose: Czechoslovak Hussite Church worship
Website: www.svmikulas.cz/cz/

The baroque St. Nicholas Church (Czech: kostel svatého Mikuláše ) is one of the structural dominants of the Old Town Square in Prague . It was built between 1732 and 1735 according to plans by Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer , the greatest master builder of the Bohemian Baroque . Today the church is used by the Czechoslovak Hussite Church , which was founded here in 1920.

history

South portal on the Old Town Square

The St. Nicholas Church was first mentioned in a document from 1273. It was one of the oldest churches in Prague's Old Town . The original Romanesque parish church was rebuilt in the 14th century in the Gothic style. Around 1360, the Bohemian penitential preacher Johann Militsch von Kremsier ( Jan Milíč z Kroměříže ), later Matthias von Janov , worked here , and in the 15th century it belonged to the supporters of the Bohemian reformer Jan Hus . In the 16th century the church was used by the Lutherans . After the Protestant defeat in the Battle of the White Mountain , the re-Catholicization of Bohemia began and the church was given over to the Benedictines . They moved in in 1635 and built a monastery adjacent to the church. But the devastating city fire of 1689 damaged the church so badly that it had to be demolished. The Benedictines won over the famous master builder Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer for the reconstruction. Under his leadership, the new monumental baroque St. Nicholas Church was built between 1732 and 1735. It was consecrated in 1737.

In connection with the reforms of Joseph II. The monastery and the church were secularized in 1787 and assigned to the old town. The city then sold the interior fittings and had warehouses and an archive set up in the empty building. In the 19th century, the church was temporarily used as a concert hall after renovation. The adjacent monastery building was demolished in 1898. In 1871 the city rented the church building to the Russian Orthodox Church , which it used until World War I. The church has served the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, which was founded here in 1920, since 1920. Concerts are also regularly held in the church.

The south side of the church forms an elaborately designed portal with two towers, decorated with sculptures of Czech saints by Anton Braun. At the portal on the east side (to Pařížská street ) there is a niche with a sandstone statue of St. Nicholas from 1906.

In the years 1965–1977 the church was extensively renovated.

interior

Interior of the church with the chandelier

The ceiling frescoes in the dome, the presbytery and the side chapels show representations from the life of St. Nicholas , the patron saint of the Church, from the life of St. Benedict , the founder of the order, and motifs from the Old Testament . The frescoes are the work of the Bavarian painter Cosmas Damian Asam . The stucco decoration in the nave was created by the Bohemian-Italian sculptor Bernardo Spinetti and the sculptures on the portal and inside by Anton Braun, nephew of the well-known sculptor Matthias Bernhard Braun .

The chandelier in the nave, adorned with cut crystal glass , was a gift from the Russian Tsar Alexander II to the Orthodox Church in 1880. The work of art in the shape of a Tsar's crown has a diameter of 4 meters, weighs 1400 kg and was made in the glassworks made in Harrachov in northern Bohemia .

literature

  • Helmut Zeller, Eva Gruberová: CityTrip-plus Prague . Reise Know-How, Bielefeld 2016, ISBN 978-3-8317-2633-2 , p. 97 (312 pp.).

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Kostel sv. Mikuláše Website of the Church of St. Nicholas, Czechoslovak Hussite Church, Prague 1. (Czech). Retrieved November 10, 2019.
  2. ↑ History of St. Nicholas Church on svmikulas.cz. Available in the archive from 2015-12-08 (Czech). Retrieved November 10, 2019.

See also

Web links

Commons : St. Nicholas in the old town  - collection of images