Church of St. Clement / Kostel Sv. Klimenta (Praha) - Lutheran Churches on Waymarking.com

The dedication is to St. Kliment - the Greek as well as Church Slavonic version of the Latin 'Clement'. The first Christian mission in the Czech lands was that of Cyril and Methodius in 864. Those two missionaries brought with them the relics of St. Clement. Both they and their followers then dedicated churches to him. St. Clement is the patron of all those who navigate the waters which may be the reason why this particular church, so close to the River Vltava, is named after him. The church's original structure was Romanesque.

St. Clement's Church is one of the oldest in Prague. Though the earliest existing written mention comes from 1226 it was possibly founded sometime around 1065 or even earlier. With the rise of the Czech reformation the church was one of those where communion was served in both kinds. An evident memento of that period is the inscription carved in stone with the date 1578, 'The Word of the Lord Endureth Forever'. Following the triumph of the Counterreformation in 1620 the church was once again Catholic and several altars were placed in it.

In 1784, during the Enlightenment, the ecclesiastical use of the church was discontinued and for more than half a century it served as a miller's granary. Some years after the Patent of Toleration by which the Habsburg monarchy allowed previous rural sects of protestants to emerge from secrecy, the first congregation of the Reformed Church was organised in Prague (1847). In 1850 this congregation bought St. Clement's from the city. In the years 1894-1896 the congregation undertook extensive reconstruction. It was then that the church acquired its present neogothic appearance as well as its present furnishings.

The last major repair of the church together with changes to its interior was undertaken in the years 1975-1981. In the process the Romanesque foundations of the church were uncovered and carefully documented. In the apse remnants of wall paintings came to light and were carefully restored. These frescoes, dating from the 14th century, evidently represented Jesus' Way of the Cross from Palm Sunday to the resurrection and extended all around the apse. Churches from foreign countries shared the expenditure for this renovation of the church and their contribution is welcomed by the home church with gratitude.

When the birth of Czechoslovakia in 1918 full religious freedom came and the Czech Protestant Reformed Church and the Czech Lutheran Church joined to form a church which took the name of Czech Brethren Protestant Church. This is the Church which St. Clement's serves to-day and which the Chaplaincy uses on a rental basis. Thus Anglicanism is now part of a rich mix which stretches back to Orthodoxy (Cyril & Methodius came from Byzantium), through Roman Catholicism to Protestantism. We are very grateful to those whose kindness makes this possible...