St. Vitus Cathedral and St. George's Basilica

As a warning, I'm not entirely sure how I want to go about sharing the churches I see. It's almost always a pretty safe assumption that people aren't going to want to read anything about churches, and the pictures tend to get repetitive. Any time I walk into a place, I have an internal monologue commenting on every aspect of the place. Some of it's funny to me, because you've got to laugh at some things. Some of it's not, so my second strategy was to talk about the architecture and the decorations of the building. And even though I might be fascinated by the difference in this depiction of Mary or that crucifix or the construction of this nave (none of which I can talk intelligently about... yet....), I'm going to guess that you won't be. My other strategy was to find a story for each place and recount that, along with pictures, because every place has a story, but not every place is willing to tell that story. So what follows will be a combination of all of the above.

Prague Cathedral, or St. Vitus Cathedral, is situated entirely in the Prague Castle complex. Now, a cathedral is different from a church not necessarily in the architecture but in the fact that it is the seat of a bishop. So it's a bit interesting right there in that the cathedral is inside the castle. Construction was started in 1344, over the site of the original church founded in 925 by St. Wenceslaus of Christmas carol fame.Turns out he was a prince of Bohemia. There's a Wenceslaus chapel in the cathedral where the crown jewels of Bohemia are kept behind a door with seven different locks that have seven different keys, one of which is held by the Czech president, but the chapel was closed. Construction on the cathedral was halted before the west end and towers were finished, due to the Hussite Wars and the Thirty Years' War. The west end and towers were finished in the 20th century using the plans of the original architect, Peter Parter. Not Peter Parker, like I originally read. Spiderman has no place in cathedrals, except maybe to swing from spire to spire.

Now if it were Batman...

It's a Gothic cathedral, so it's very pretty and very cold. There are high, vaunted ceilings and dozens of side chapels and, when I was there, many tourists and school groups. I naturally went to my right once I stepped inside and looked in a chapel whose description was in Czech, with a small boy smiling for a picture in front of a statue of Mary. To my left, a goodhearted guard was shooing children away from the exit sign and smiling as they ran off to find their parents. In a space full of so many people to be distracted by, it's hard to be overwhelmed with the grandeur of it all.

The church is like most other western Gothic churches in that it's got a long rectangle in the middle with the door at one end and the altar at the other. The main nave is separated from the side chapels with columns and side aisles. There is a division between the wooden pews in the nave and the altar in the chancel of the church called the transept. Statues hang from the columns and the left side opens up to the organ, which is ornate enough on its own, while the right opens to a door out to the courtyard, I think. The pulpit (and I cannot get over how ornate the pulpits are) is raised and on the left before the altar. The main altar itself is pretty unassuming compared with the rest of the architecture, though it is decked out in lilies. Behind the altar is a huge construction, which I'm learning is common, to draw the eye to the altar and the front of the cathedral

Around the back of the main altar (which is called the retr-ochoir- bam church architecture knowledge!) is the tomb of St. John of Nepomuk.

While I was walking around this crazy ornate tomb with curtains and red and white drapings, one of the ladies walking around in front of me said, "Ridiculous." I mean, I almost have to agree- there are kings in the side chapels with less show for their tombs. This man acquired sainthood after being martyred by drowning- he was tossed off a bridge by the king of Bohemia for not revealing the secrets of the confession of the queen of Bohemia and earned his spot as a strong supporter of rebellion against crazy governing figures and the sanctity of confession. So decorate the tomb as you will. The woman went a little red in the face and backpedaled when she saw the man walking behind me kneel and cross himself, offering a short prayer.

I was really excited to go down in the crypt, where you can see not only dead people but also the layers of the building of the cathedral, but it was closed. On the bright side, I did get to see this awesome lion holding a candle, so there's that.

I am a lion. Holding a candle. I do not find this ironic.

Also in Prague Castle is St. George's Basilica. I wasn't expecting to see two things in one day, as I've tried to take it easy on my schedule, but hey, why not. When there's a basilica to see, there's a basilica to see. Now, basilicas were the Roman meeting halls back in the day, with a big wide meeting space and generally an aspe (Bam! Church architecture term again!), which is a curved section with a semi-dome, at the end away from the entrance. But a building can also be designated as a basilica by the pope if it houses a relic or the remains of a saint (or so wikipedia tells me), so even though this building is done in the Gothic style, which is different from the Roman style from whence basilicas came, it can still be called a basilica. St. George's Basilica was built by in 920 Vratislaus I of Bohemia, father of Wenceslaus, who was killed fighting the Magyans (or, more commonly but less fun to say, the Hungarians). The structure that's there today was redone after a fire.

Up in the corner, there's a chapel dedicated to Ludmila of Bohemia, the grandmother of Wenceslaus who acted as regent for him when his father died and who was strangled with her own veil by Wenceslaus' mother, jealous of his grandmother's influence on the child. She was also married to the first Christian Duke of Bohemia, so I quite think she deserves the chapel. Vratislaus is buried in the crypt beneath the basilica.

I don't have a good picture of the chapel, but look, it's Gothic! It's got a pointed arch on the window!

The basilica has a little side rooms, one of which has a statue of Mary holding Jesus after his crucifixion, but neither Jesus nor Mary have any heads, so it's hard to tell.

In the opposite room, there's a little bit of history about the basilica, and you can find out the head abbess associated with this basilica had the right to crown the queen of Bohemia. Fun facts all around.

I liked the basilica. It was quiet, with many fewer people than the cathedral, and you could almost sit down to pray. There wasn't an altar up, since there was a concert planned there that evening, and the ceiling wasn't high and vaunted, just simple and wooden. At the same time, I like my altars and I like my high ceilings. It helps me focus when I'm in a service. And though I love music, a church set up for a concert is not the same as a church set up for worship. So I guess for me, to make a space seem like a church, it has to be built like a church, look like a church and have people in it who are acting like a church, which might be why it's so much easier for me to see God in an empty sanctuary. But it's good to learn the history of these buildings and to see and feel their beauty and space. Of course, these are not the end of my church-related adventures in Prague. More to come!