26 January 2019

It took almost 600 years
to complete Saint Vitus
Cathedral at Prague Castle

Prague Cathedral and Prague Castle stand above the River Vltava (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

I spent an afternoon this week exploring Prague Castle and visiting Saint Vitus’s Cathedral, a key architectural building that has influenced Gothic architecture throughout Europe.

This spectacular cathedral in the grounds of Prague Castle stands in a dominant position at the top of Hradcany Hill. It is the Czech capital’s most prominent landmark and its spires can be seen from every vantage point throughout the city.

The cathedral is the seat of the Archbishop of Prague but is owned by the Czech government as part of the Prague Castle complex. It is the largest and most important church in the Czech Republic and here too are the tombs of King Wenceslas and many Bohemian kings and Holy Roman Emperors, as well as the Bohemian crown jewels.

Inside Saint Vitus Cathedral in Prague … it took almost 600 years to complete its building programme (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The dimensions of the cathedral are 124 by 60 metres, the main tower is 102.8 metres high, the front towers 82 metres, and the arch height is 33.2 metres.

The current cathedral took almost 600 years to build, and this is the third of a series of religious buildings on this site, all dedicated to Saint Vitus.

The first church on this site was an early Romanesque rotunda founded in 930 by Vaclav I, Duke of Bohemia – better known in the west through the popular Victorian carol as ‘Good King Wenceslas.’

Saint Vitus, a Roman martyr was chosen as the patron when Wenceslas acquired the arm of the saint as a relic from Emperor Henry I.

When the Bishopric of Prague was founded in 1060, Prince Spytihněv II began building a larger Romanesque basilica on the site. This was a triple-aisled basilica with two choirs and a pair of towers connected to the western transept. The design was inspired by Romanesque architecture in the Holy Roman Empire, including the abbey church in Hildesheim and Speyer Cathedral.

The south apse of the older church was incorporated into the eastern transept because it included the tomb of Saint Wenceslaus, who had become the patron of the Czech princes.

Work on building the present Gothic cathedral began on 21 November 1344, when the Bishops of Prague were raised to the rank of archbishops.

King John of Bohemia laid the foundation stone for the new building. The patrons were the dean and chapter of cathedral, Archbishop Arnost of Pardubice and King Charles IV of Bohemia, soon to become the Holy Roman Emperor. Charles IV envisioned the new cathedral as a coronation church, family crypt, treasury and the tomb of Saint Wenceslas.

The Rose Window at the West End of Saint Vitus Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The first master builder was Matthias of Arras, who was brought from the Papal Palace in Avignon. Matthias designed the overall layout of the building in the style of a French Gothic cathedral. This included a triple-nave basilica with flying buttresses, a short transept, a five-bayed choir and a five-sided apse with an ambulatory and radiating chapels.

However, Matthias lived only long enough to build the most easterly parts of the choir: the arcades and the ambulatory. The slender vertical lines of late French Gothic style and clear proportions indicate his work.

After Matthias died in 1352, 23-year-old Peter Parler assumed control of the cathedral workshop as master builder.

At first, Parler only worked on plans left by Matthias, building the sacristy on the north side of the choir and the chapel on the south. But once he had finished all that Matthias left unfinished, Parler continued with his own innovative ideas, with a unique new synthesis of Gothic elements seen in the vaults he designed for the choir.

Original Gothic work at the east end of the cathedral (Photograph; Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Parler trained as a sculptor and woodcarver, and he approached architecture as a sculpture. His vaults have double diagonal ribs that span the width of the choir-bay. The crossing pairs of ribs create a net-like construction that considerably strengthens the vault. They also give a lively ornamentation to the ceiling, as the interlocking vaulted bays create a dynamic zig-zag pattern the length of the cathedral.

His pillars have classic, bell-shaped columns, and he designed the dome vault of the new Saint Wenceslaus chapel, the clerestory walls, the original window tracery and the blind tracery panels of the buttresses.

His influence is also seen in the corbels, the passageway lintels, and the busts on the triforium, depicting faces of the royal family, saints, Bishops of Prague, and the two master builders, Matthias and Parler.

The gargoyles at the West End of Saint Vitus Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

However, work on the cathedral proceeded slowly because the Emperor wanted Parler to work on other projects, including the new Charles Bridge in Prague and many churches. When Peter Parler died in 1399, only the choir and parts of the transept were finished.

Parler’s sons, Wenzel and Johannes Parler, continued his work, and they in turn were succeeded by a Master Petrilk. Under these three masters, the transept and the great tower on its south side were finished, as well as the gable that connects the tower with the south transept. Known as the ‘Golden Gate’ because of its golden mosaic of the Last Judgment depicted on it, the kings entered the cathedral through this door for their coronations.

The Last Judgment depicted on the ‘Golden Gate’ at the south side of the cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The Hussite Wars put a stop to building work in the first half of 15th century. The workshops closed, and the cathedral furnishings, pictures and sculptures were damaged. A century later, a great fire heavily damaged the cathedral in 1541.

Several attempts to resume work on the cathedral were unsuccessful. Later attempts only brought some Renaissance and Baroque elements into the Gothic building, including the baroque spire of the south tower and the great organ in the north wing of the transept.

A stained glass window in the nave of Saint Vitus Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

At a conference of German architects in Prague in 1844, Václav Pešina, a canon of the cathedral, and the architect Josef Kranner presented a programme to renovate and complete the cathedral, and a society was formed to promote the completion of the cathedral.

Josef Kranner headed the restoration work in 1861-1866 which consisted mostly of repairs, removing many baroque decorations and restoring the interior.

The foundations of the new nave were laid in 1870, and in 1873, after Kramer’s death, the work passed to the architect Josef Mocker, who designed the west façade in a classic Gothic manner with two towers.

After Mocker’s death, Kamil Hilbert became the third and final architect of the cathedral restoration.

The sculptor Vojtěch Sucharda worked on the façade in the 1920s, and the Czech Art Nouveau painter Alfons Mucha decorated the new windows in the north nave. Frantisek Kysela designed the Rose Window (1925-1927) that depicts scenes in the creation story.

The south side of Saint Vitus Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Saint Vitus Cathedral was finally finished in 1929, in time for the Saint Wenceslas celebrations and almost six centuries – 585 years – after it began.

Although the entire west half of cathedral is a neo-Gothic addition, much of the design and elements developed by Peter Parler were used in the restoration, giving the cathedral a harmonious, unified appearance as a whole.

The cathedral has influenced the development of Late Gothic architecture throughout Central Europe, including the Stephansdom cathedral in Vienna, Strasbourg Cathedral, Saint Marko’s Church in Zagreb and Saint Barbara’s Church in Kutna Hora.

Regional Gothic styles in Slovenia, northern Croatia, Austria, the Czech Republic and southern Germany were all heavily influenced by Parler’s design, especially his net vaults.

Did Parler’s work on Saint Vitus Cathedral, with the ingenuity and ornamentation in his design of the vaults, influence the Perpendicular Style of English Gothic at the end of 14th century, or was it the other way around?

Replicas of the Czech Crown jewels held in Saint Vitus Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Saint Wenceslas Chapel is not open to the public but can be viewed from the doorways. A small door with seven locks leads from a corner of the chapel to the Crown Chamber containing the Czech Crown Jewels, displayed to the public only once every eight years or so.

Visitors also have their attention drawn to the spires, the gargoyles, the stained-glass windows. But close by are many other church buildings, including the Archbishop’s Palace, the Church of the Holy Spirit and the Basilica of Saint George, the best-preserved Romanesque church in Prague. It dates from 973, and the rust red façade is a 17th century baroque addition.

The Basilica of Saint George, east of Saint Vitus Cathedral, is part of the castle complex in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

A government decree in 1954 entrusted Prague Castle to ‘all Czechoslovak people’ and to the administration of the President’s Office.

Today, the Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Vitus, Saint Wenceslaus and Saint Adalbert is the Roman Catholic cathedral of Prague and the seat of the Archbishop of Prague.

Until 1997, the cathedral was dedicated only to Saint Vitus, and it is still known popularly only as Saint Vitus Cathedral. In 1997, on 1000th anniversary of the death of Saint Voitechus, the church was re-dedicated to Saint Wenceslas and Saint Adalbert.

The Roman Catholic Church has filed several petitions on the ownership of the cathedral. In 2006, the President’s Office ceded the administration of the cathedral to the Metropolitan Chapter. But the courts have ruled that the cathedral is owned by the Czech Republic, although the chapter owns the interior furnishings.

The great west doors of Saint Vitus Cathedral (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Saint Nicholas Church and
the story of a unique
Hussite church in Prague

The Church of Saint Nicholas at night in the Old Town Square in Prague, with the statue of John Hus in the centre of the square (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Patrick Comerford

As I strolled around the Old Town of Prague on Thursday afternoon [24 January 2019] week, I visited the Church of Saint Nicholas, on the corner of the Old Town Square, Pařížská Street and Franz Kafka Square. Its beautiful green baroque towers and dome can be seen throughout the old town centre.

This monumental church was built in 1732-1735 to designs by Kilián Ignaz Dientzenhofer, on the site of an earlier 13th century Gothic church, also dedicated to Saint Nicholas.

The church was the parish church of the Old Town and the meeting place until the Church of Our Lady Before Tyn the opposite side of the square was completed in the 14th century.

Inside the Church of Saint Nicholas in the Old Town Square in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

After the Battle of the White Mountain in 1620, the church became part of a Benedictine monastery. The early mediaeval church was destroyed by fire, and the present church was completed in 1735, and its white façade decorated with statues by Antonin Braun.

But just a half century after the church was completed, the Emperor Joseph II closed all monasteries not engaged in socially useful activities in 1781, the church was stripped bare and the interior decorations were sold off.

The empty building was used as a granary for a while and then as a registry archive. The church returned to its original purpose in 1871 when it was used by the Russian Orthodox Church. During this Orthodox era, the splendid crystal crown chandelier, made in Harrachov glass works in northern Bohemia, was donated to the church by the Russian Tsar.

The chandelier was donated by the Russian Tsar to the Church of Saint Nicholas when it was an Orthodox Church (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The 20th century brought new decorations with neo-baroque style paintings, statues, and a life-size sculpture of Saint Nicholas was placed in the outside niche of the church.

The Czechoslovak Hussite Church was founded here in 1920, reviving the legacy of the tradition of the reformer Jan Hus. Since then, this has been the main church of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church and its Prague Diocese, and so it is often known as Saint Nicholas Cathedral.

During the Prague uprising in 1945, the church was used by the Czech partisans as a hidden site for Radio Prague after the main radio building was attacked by the Waffen-SS.

The baroque towers of the Church of Saint Nicholas in the Old Town Square in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The Czechoslovak Hussite Church began when a group of priests in former Czechoslovakia separated the Roman Catholic Church after World War I. The church could be described as neo-Hussite, and contains Protestant, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and national elements.

It claims to have revived the traditions of to the Hussite reformers and acknowledges Jan Hus as its predecessor.

The forerunner of the church was the Jednota or Union of the Catholic Czechoslovak Clergy, founded in 1890 to promote modernist reforms in the Roman Catholic Church, including as use of the local language in the liturgy and voluntary rather than compulsory clerical celibacy.

The radical movement that resulted in the foundation of a new Church began in the Christmas season of 1919, when Christmas masses were celebrated in the Czech language in many Czechoslovak churches.

The altar and apse in the Church of Saint Nicholas (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The church was first formed in 1920 as the Czechoslovak Church by Dr Karel Farský (1880-1927), who became its first Patriarch and the author of its liturgy. It was well-supported by Czechoslovakia’s first president, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, a member of the Evangelical Church of Czech Brethren, the main Protestant denomination in what is now the Czech Republic.

After the split, amidst the post-war atmosphere of anti-Catholic agitation and euphoria about Czech independence, the Czechoslovak Church’s membership increased rapidly. In the first post-war census in 1921, 523,232 people claimed to be adherents of this church in what is today the Czech Republic. By 1930, membership had grown to 779,672.

At the beginning of the communist rule, the 1950 census recorded 946,497 members of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church. But under Communist rule, membership began to decline.

The main entrance to the Church of Saint Nicholas in the Old Town Square in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Membership today is estimated at between 100,000 and 180,000, mostly in the Czech Republic, with a smaller number in Slovakia. There are 304 congregations organised into five dioceses in Prague, Plzeň, Hradec Králové, Brno, and Olomouc in the Czech Republic and three congregations in the Bratislava Diocese in Slovakia.

About 266 priests are in active ministry, of whom 130 are women. Candidates of ministry are prepared at the Hussite Faculty of Theology at Charles University in Prague.

From the beginning, the Hussite Church sought relations with the Serbian Orthodox Church and the Old Catholic Church, but also showed tendencies to a rationalist and Unitarian theology until 1958, when it adopted a creed based on the Nicene Creed.

The pulpit and crucifix in the Church of Saint Nicholas (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

The church draws its teachings from the traditional Christianity expressed in Patristic writings or the work of the Early Church Fathers, the first Seven Ecumenical Councils, the work of Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius, and Reformation traditions, especially Utraquist and Hussite theology.

The Czechoslovak Hussite Church recognises seven sacraments. Like some Lutheran and Presbyterian churches, it emphasises the freedom of conscience of individual believers, practices the ordination of women, and emphasises the equal participation of the laity in church leadership.

The liturgy has two forms that have much in common with the texts of the Roman Catholic Mass, but include elements of Luther’s German Mass and the Hussite tradition of the Utraquist mass.

A statue of Saint George in the Church of Saint Nicholas (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)

Although saints are not venerated, images of saints can be seen in church decoration. In imagery used by the church, the chalice plays a major role, usually depicted in red, as it was used in the 15th century as a battle standard on the flags of the Hussites.

Ecumenical relations are cordial, but sometimes they have been strained with the Roman Catholic Czech hierarchy. When the first woman to become a bishop in the Czechoslovak Hussite church, Jana Šilerová, was elected 1999, the Roman Catholic Archbishop Miloslav Vlk warned election would damage ecumenical relations. But the Roman Catholic Church distanced itself from his remarks, and Roman Catholic representatives attended her consecration the following year.

Bishop Jan Schwarz was the seventh Patriarch of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church (2001-2005). During his time in office, the church was divided between rival factions, with some refusing to accept his patriarchy and threatening division. He resigned when he was called before the church's Episcopal Central Council in 2005, and later joined the Religious Society of Czech Unitarians. The present, eighth patriarch, Bishop Tomáš Butta, was elected in 2006.

The church is a member of the World Council of Churches, the Ecumenical Council of Churches in the Czech Republic, the Conference of European Churches, and the Leuenberg Community of Churches.

The memorial of Jan Hus in the Old Town Square in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019; click on image for full-screen view)

The church faces onto the Old Town Square and the Jan Hus Memorial. This huge monument depicts Hus with Hussite warriors and Protestants who were forced into exile 200 years after Hus in the wake of the lost Battle of the White Mountain during the Thirty Years’ War, and a young mother who symbolises national rebirth.

The monument was so large that the sculptor, Ladislav Šaloun, designed and built his own villa and studio to complete the work. It was unveiled in 1915 to mark the 500th anniversary of Jan Hus’s martyrdom.

Jan Hus (1369-1415) was inspired by the teachings of John Wycliffe and was a key forerunner of the later Reformation in the 16th century. He criticised religious and moral decay in the Catholic Church, believed the Mass should be celebrated in the local language, rather than in Latin. Hus was finally condemned by the Council of Constance and burned at the stake in 1415, leading to the Hussite Wars.

To the people of Bohemia, Jan Hus became a symbol of dissent and national resistance, and later became a symbol of opposition to Habsburg rule. During Communist rule, sitting at the feet of the Jan Hus memorial became a way of quietly expressing opposition. The memorial was restored in 2007.

Saint Nicholas Church can be visited every day except during Mass on Sundays. It is also a very venue for concerts of religious and classical music.

A statue of Saint Nicholas in a niche at the Church of Saint Nicholas in the Old Town Square in Prague (Photograph: Patrick Comerford, 2019)