Emmaus Monastery

The Emmaus monastery is an abbey established in 1347 in Prague. The area became the only Benedictine monastery of the Bohemian kingdom and all Slavic Europe.

In the 1360s, the Cloisters of the Monastery were decorated with a cycle of 85 wall Gothic paintings with parallels from the Old and New Testaments. The Gothic cloisters also feature original faded frescoes with bits of Pagan symbolism from the 14th century. The monastery was baroquized in the 17th-18th centuries and the two temple towers were added.

Charles IV gave to the just-founded monastery the manuscript Reims Gospel, it was probably lost from Prague in the time of the Hussite Wars, manuscript later became part of the Reims Cathedral treasury. The monastery became a center of culture and art, students of Cyril and Methodius studied there in addition to Jan Hus.

During the World War II the monastery was seized by the Gestapo and the monks were sent to Dachau concentration camp. The monastery building and vaults were destroyed by a U.S. bombing raid on Prague on 14 February 1945. The modern roof with steeples was added in the 1960s. It was returned to the Benedictine order in 1990, the monastery currently belongs to three monks, two of whom live there.

References:

• Wikipedia

Address

Vyšehradská 49, Prague, Czech Republic

Details

Founded: 1347
Category: Religious sites in Czech Republic