Emauss Monastery – Churches, chapels, monasteries in the Czech Republic 2.

Location: Prague 

The Emauss Monastery (Monastery Na Slovanech) was founded in the mid of the 14th century by King Charles IV for the Slavic Benedictines, who performed religious services in Old Church Slavonic language. In 1371, a church was added to the monastery complex. It became soon the centre of education and art. John Hus, the famous czech priest and Jerome of Prague also belonged to the most famous students of the monastery. In 1611 the building was plundered. Finally it revived in the second half of the 17th century, when it underwent a baroque reconstruction led by Spanish Benedictines. That time the famous astronomist Johaness Kepler also lived among the walls of the monastery. In the second half of the 19th century, the monastery was rebuilt by the Beuron Benedictines (from south Germany), who created a specific artistic style, the Art of Beuron.

At the end of the Word War II, the Emauss Monastery was seriously damaged during the bombing of Prague in 1945, but the complex was finally revived between 1966 and 1969. It later became the seat of the Czechoslovakian Academy of Science. In 1990, it was returned to the Benedictines and both the monastery and the church were reconstructed for the next twenty years. The roof of the curch was rebuilt in a very modern style. The building now is a national cultural monument.