Kostel svatého Gabriela v Praze Church

The Church of Saint Gabriel at Smíchov is actually dedicated to the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary. It took the name of Saint Gabriel from the former monastery, to whose grounds it belongs. It stands in a prominent position on the southern foothills of Petřín, in Holečkova Street, on the site of former vineyards. Together with the monastery, it has been a cultural monument since nineteen sixty-four.

The Benedictine monastery of the Beuron congregation was founded in eighteen eighty-eight. The ideological project was prepared by the Belgian Benedictine, Abbot Hildebrand de Hemptinne, and developed by his assistant, the Belgian priest and architect Gislain de Béthune. The foundress of the monastery, Countess Gabriela Sweerts-Šporková, paid for a substantial part of the construction. However, she did not live to see its completion. The church was finished in eighteen ninety-one and was consecrated by Prague's Archbishop, Cardinal František Schönborn. The decoration continued until nineteen seventeen.

It is a Neo-Romanesque two-aisled basilica made of unplastered sandstone blocks with a semicircular sanctuary. The northern side aisle here replaces the wing of the cloister of the adjacent convent. Above the southern side aisle rises a rectangular tower forty-three meters high with a pyramidal roof. The portal of the main entrance is decorated with enthroned statues of the patrons of the Benedictine order. Saint Benedict holds a book of his monastic rules, beside him sits his sister, Saint Scholastica. Above them stands the Archangel Gabriel, the patroness's patron.

The interior is covered with paintings of the Beuron school, founded by the German painter, sculptor, architect and monk Peter Desiderius Lenz. The paintings were executed by his pupil Jan Verkade and assisted by Jakob Würger. They are dominated by the enthroned Christ Pantocrator with the Latin inscription I am, who I am. Around him are the Bohemian patrons of the land: Saint Wenceslaus, Saint Adalbert, Saint John of Nepomuk and Saint Ludmila. Reliquaries of the first three saints were placed in the main altar. The other paintings also have Latin inscriptions, mostly quotations from the Bible. On either side of the altar stand life-size statues of the Virgin Mary and the Archangel Gabriel in white marble in the scene of the Annunciation. They were created by Father Desiderius himself. According to his designs, Prague goldsmith Jindřich Grünfeld made the altar vessels.

The first nuns arrived in eighteen eighty-nine from the Nonnberg convent in Salzburg and were joined by sisters from Czech German-speaking families. After the establishment of Czechoslovakia, anti-German and anti-Catholic sentiments turned against them. In nineteen nineteen, they therefore left for Styria and the order sold the monastery together with the church to the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs. The condition was that services would continue to be held in the church. The Czech postal service sold the complex in twenty nineteen to a private company. The church belongs to the Saint Wenceslaus parish in Smíchov and continues to serve religious services.