Kostel Panny Marie na Slovanech

Kostel Panny Marie na Slovanech, better known as the Emmaus Church, is the Gothic monastery church of Prague's New Town, instantly recognizable by the two asymmetrical concrete towers rising over its roofline. It anchors a Benedictine abbey founded in 1347, pairing medieval history with one of the boldest architectural gestures of postwar Czechoslovakia.

Why did Charles IV build a monastery here?

On 21 November 1347, Holy Roman Emperor and Bohemian king Charles IV founded the abbey for monks following the Slavonic rite. He brought Croatian Benedictines - known as Glagolites - from the abbey on the island of Pašman near Zadar, who used the Glagolitic script to copy and translate liturgical texts. The three-aisled Gothic hall church was built on a scale matching Charles's ambition to root the Bohemian monarchy in its Slavonic heritage. Its full dedication - to Our Lady, St Jerome, Cyril and Methodius, Adalbert and Procopius - reflects exactly that program of patron saints.

Where does the name "Emmaus" come from?

The monastery and its new church were consecrated on 29 March 1372, on Easter Monday - the day the liturgy reads the Gospel account of Christ appearing to two disciples on the road to Emmaus. That reading gave the whole complex its popular name, still used far more often than the church's formal dedication.

What happened to the church during the war?

On 14 February 1945, an Allied bombing raid on Prague struck the church directly, destroying its towers and heavily damaging the Gothic frescoes in the monastery cloisters. That 14th-century cycle, depicting Old and New Testament scenes painted after French models, had been one of the most significant works of Gothic painting in Prague; only fragments survived the raid. For more than two decades afterward, the church stood without proper roofing over its towers.

Why do the towers look so different from the rest of the church?

The reconstruction was entrusted to architect František Maria Černý, a former student of Pavel Janák and Josef Gočár and an admirer of Le Corbusier. Between 1964 and 1968 he designed two asymmetrical reinforced-concrete shells, often described as resembling unfurled sails or folded hands, each capped with a gilded spire. The stark contrast between raw concrete and the Gothic body of the church was controversial at the time, but the towers have since become one of the most recognizable silhouettes on the Prague skyline and a landmark of postwar sacred architecture.

What happened to the monastery after the war?

In 1950 the communist state nationalized the abbey and handed its buildings to the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, forcing the Benedictine community to leave. The church only returned to regular liturgical use decades later: a new altar was consecrated and the first Mass in decades was celebrated on Easter Monday, 21 April 2003.

Frequently asked questions

Where is the Church of Our Lady on the Slavs located? In Prague's New Town (Praha 2), within the grounds of the former Emmaus Monastery, close to the Vltava riverbank.

Why is the church called "na Slovanech"? The name refers to the Slavonic-rite Benedictine monks for whom Charles IV founded the monastery in 1347.

Can visitors still see the original Gothic frescoes? Only in part - fragments of the 14th-century fresco cycle survive in the monastery cloisters, despite severe damage in the 1945 bombing.

Who designed the church's distinctive towers? The modern concrete shell towers were designed in the 1960s by architect František Maria Černý, replacing the originals destroyed during the Second World War.