Emauzy monastery - Prague (Czech Republic)
N 50° 04.339 E 014° 25.016
33U E 458276 N 5546834
The Monastery Emauzy called also Monastery Na Slovanech is bound to the Emperor Charles IV for its foundation (1347). The ruler invited hither Slavic Benedictine monks from Dalmatia and Croatia...
Waymark Code: WM6FA1
Location: Hlavní město Praha, Czechia
Date Posted: 05/25/2009
Views: 209
Founded for a Slavonic Benedictine order at the request of Charles IV, and originally called Na Slovanech, the Emmaus Monastery dates from 1372. During WWII the monastery was seized by the Gestapo and the monks were sent to Dachau concentration camp, then in February 1945 it was almost destroyed by a stray Allied fire-bomb.
Some monks returned after the war, but the reprieve was short-lived: in 1950 the communists closed down the monastery, and tortured the prior to death. It was finally restored to the Benedictine order in 1990 and reconstruction has been going on ever since.
The monastery's Gothic Church of Our Lady (kostel Panny Marie), badly damaged by the 1945 bombing, re-opened in 2003, though the swooping, twin spires were added back in the 1960s. The atmospheric Gothic cloisters have some fine, but faded, original frescoes dating from the 14th century, salted with bits of pagan symbolism.