St. Nicholas Church, Prague, Czechia

The original Gothic Parish church of Saint Nicholas which dated from the 13th century, stood on the site of the present church. Sometime after 1620, it was given to the Jesuits, and the parish transferred to St. Václav’s Church. In 1628, they opened a primary school and a junior secondary school.

In the second half of the 17th century the Jesuits decided to build a new church designed by Giovanni Domenico Orsi. A partial impression of the original planned appearance of the church is provided by the Chapel of St Barbara, which was built first so that mass could be celebrated. Old Saint Nicholas was demolished and in 1673 the cornerstone laid for the new church. The church was built in two stages during the 18th century. From 1703 till 1711 the west façade, the choir, the Chapels of St Barbara and St Anne were built.

Count Wenceslaus Kolowrat-Liebsteinsky (1634 – 6 October 1659) from the prominent Czech House of Kolowrat was the largest patron of The church of St. Nicholas. He donated his entire estate, worth 178,500 gold, for the construction of the church and the adjacent buildings in Prague in Malá Strana.

The new plans involved an intricate geometrical system of interconnected cylinders with a central dome above the transept. The massive nave with side chapels and an undulating vault based on a system of intersecting ellipsoids was apparently built by Christoph Dientzenhofer. The pillars between the wide spans of the arcade supporting the triforium were meant to maximize the dynamic effect of the church. The chancel and its characteristic copper cupola were built in 1737–1752, this time using plans by Christoph’s son, Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer.

In 1752, after Dientzenhofer’s death in 1751, the construction of the church tower was completed. During the years the church continued to expand its interior beauty. Following the abolition of the Jesuit Order by Pope Clement XIV, St Nicholas became the main parish church of the Lesser Town in 1775.

During the communist era the church tower was used as an observatory for State Security since from the tower it was possible to keep watch on the American and Yugoslav embassies and the access route to the West German embassy.

The history of the Church of St Nicholas of Prague began long before its construction. It is known that as far back as the thirteenth century, the site on which it stands was dedicated to religious use, as it housed a small Romanesque-style parish church. Later, the parish church was acquired by the municipal authority, and served as a council chamber until the Old Town Hall was built in 1338. The church also accepted the preachings of Reformist thinkers such as Jan Milíč and Jan Hus, both of whom were deeply critical of the Catholic Church at that time. Later, the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648)—and the subsequent Catholic victory over Czech territories—resulted in the parish church coming under the control of the Benedictine Order. Only after the church was destroyed by a fire in 1689, did the monks order the building of the Baroque church we know today.

Completed in 1737 by the German architect Dientzenhofer, the church over the next 100 years switched between its religious function and other more diverse uses, such as a granary and a general archive. Between 1871 and 1914, the church was taken over by the Russian Orthodox community, and later it was used as a military chapel during the Second World War. After the war, the Church of St Nicholas passed into the hands of its current owner, the Hussite Church.