...nobody knows why exactly the Benedictine Monastery Na Slovanech is called "Emauzy". The most plausible explanation is that people used to call it "Emauzy" as the monastery held a feast on the day when the passage about the disciples in Emmaus is read in churches.
The monastery was founded by Charles IV. His aim was to strengthen Slavic awareness and the renewal of the tradition of Slavic service in the Czech lands. This is where the name Na Slovanech comes from. It became one of the seven cloisters that Charles IV founded in the New Town of Prague. The monastery’s foundation was then confirmed by the Pope Climent VI with his bull from 21st September 1348. The same year saw the arrival of Croatian Benedictines in Prague, who settled down between Zderaz and Vyšehrad at St. Damian’s Church. Gradually, the monastery grew richer and richer thanks to generous subsidies provided mainly by Charles IV, but also by other people. The monastery was helped by means of the income from numerous villages and courts, shares on meat store fees and from wine in Ungelt. At the same time the monastery was exempt from paying duty. Despite sufficient finances the construction of the monastery’s church went very slowly. The monastery was not consecrated until 24 years later by the archbichop Jan Ocko from Vlašim. The emperor attended the consecration.
In the Hussite period, the monastery was the only monastic community that embraced Hussitism and preserved its existing system. John Hus was in touch with the monastery and thus valuable Slavic documents and valuable objects kept in there were preserved.
There had not been any radical changes until the times following the battle on White Mountain, when Czech monks left Emauzy and their place was filled with Montserrat Black Spaniards. They brought with them a copy of the statue of Virgin Mary of Montserrat and gave Emauzy their crest – a mountain cut with a saw, which can still be seen in the outside wall of the monastery’s church. They also had the monastery rebuilt in the baroque style. In 1636 they had the monastery’s roof covered with hollow tiles, one more floor was added to the building and a great number of details were created inside the monastery.
The whole face of the monastery was then changed in the middle of the 19th century under the influence of the so called Beuron Artistic School when the monastery underwent regothization. The artistic efforts of the Benedictines of Montserrat were destroyed with no documentation left. At least the medieval wall paintings in the monastery’s ambulatory were not affected in any way.
During World War I, the monastery was used as an infirmary for Austrian soldiers. The Benedictines held masses for the monarchy and the monastery’s abbot Alban Schachleiter was in touch with the monarchal family. The monastery was called the den of chauvinism and the abbot was forced to leave the country in 1919. Fifty-two monks left along with him and sixty-five stayed, surprisingly a number of them were German. Two new wings were built in front of the west frontale of the church and the monastery between the years 1929–1930. They were designed by Bohumil Hypšman in the neo-classicist style and they closed the monastery’s second yard. In 1932, a statue of St. Benedict made of Slivenec marble was erected above the new gate.
During World War II, on 8th July 1941, the monastery was confiscated by Germans and some monks including abbot Arnošt Vykoukal ended up in concentration camps. The monastery then served as the land office and a nurses’ dormitory of the German Red Cross. Emauzy’s library was moved to Postoloprty Chateau, so it did not suffer any damage during the air-raid on Prague or the forty-year long period of communism. The library was moved back to the abbey in 1994.
During the Anglo-American air-raid on Prague on 14th February 1945, the monastery was badly damaged. The church and the gothic part of the buildings were burnt down and all that remained of them was the ground floor vault. Two thirds of the church vault collapsed, the north steeple was completely destroyed and the south one burned down. The fire in the monastery did not cease until six days later. The heat caused deep cracks in the walls and an enormous amount of dust. The monastery’s paintings become darker and all the gilding disappeared.
After the air-raid the damaged gothic frescos were renovated by Václav Pichla’s stucco work company and Oldrich Stefan was in charge of the renovation of the buildings. His project, however, was not approved until 1958 with the condition that the church would not be used for religious purposes. In the meantime, a skin clinic was set up in the renovated monastery building and the old monastery was modified to suit the needs of the Academy of Sciences, which moved into the premises in 1961. Since Stefan wanted to highlight the gable and the two steeples to refer to the religious mission of the church, it was decided that a competition would be organized to find some unconventional solution.
The competition was held from October 1964 to March 1965 between six invited architects. The winner was František Maria Cerný, with an intersection of two concrete more or less triangular walls with two metal and gilded peaks. The unique Emauzy temple was finished in 1968, i.e. forty years ago.
In 1990, the monastery was restituted to the original owners – the Benedictine order, which came back to Prague from its Italian exile and had to carry out vast reconstructions of the monastery. The reconstruction brought several interesting findings, amongst these were wall paintings depicting Benedictine saints and monks which were uncovered in the southern part of the church.
The purpose of the architectural competition for Emauzy church steeples in 1968 was to find an unconventional solution. The project of Ing. Arch. F. M. Cerný was to install a completely modern construction on the church, which became known as "Couragé". This construction has been one of the most valuable expressions of modern architecture in Prague for the last forty years. It is an asymmetrical 32 m laminated dominant with a 40 cm thick white concrete construction. The construction has 4 m high gilded peaks with 1.3 kg of 24-carat gold. The peaks reach the height of 52 m and from the cornice up, they measure 32 m. The construction gives an impression that the southern steeple, which is closer to the River, is higher than the other one, but it is not true.