Bethlehem Chapel

The Bethlehem Chapel ( Czech Betlémská kaple ) is one of the many monuments and buildings of Prague's Old Town.

Architecture

It is a simple hall, on the streets conspicuous by its distinctive Gothic double gable. The large rectangular church with arched windows and a wooden beamed ceiling is completed by two gabled roofs. The architecture of the building program. Center of the great room is the altar, but the pulpit. The Bethlehem Chapel was built as a church sermon, not to celebrate the event. So there was no tabernacle. Because of this specialization of worship on the word they say, despite their size and not Chapel Church. The Bethlehem Chapel is thus an interesting forerunner of the Protestant church sermon. Their importance, however, did not attain the Bethlehem Chapel because of their architecture, but as the scene of the first phase of the Czech Reformation.

History

Foundation

The founding of the Bethlehem chapel dates back to two residents of Prague, a shopkeeper in January Kříž and the Knights Hanus of Mülheim ( Mülheim from John of Pardubice). In the Memorandum of May 24, 1391 was determined that the sermon should be the core of worship and the building will built to also in Prague to have a place where people will be preached in the native language, in Czech: " The merciful Lord, who left the wholesome food in the seed of his word for his God-fearing, decided that his word is not chained, but in his church preached freely to be. This chapel was therefore to Bethlehem, which means "house of bread ' is, named because here the common people and the faithful of Christ are to be saturated by the bread of the holy preaching. " The appointment of a minister for the chapel should be made jointly by the professors of the university and the mayor. 1394 the construction was completed. First preacher was Master Stephen of Kolin.

Protestant preaching church

1402 Jan Hus, master preacher at Bethlehem Chapel was appointed. With its rousing sermons in the native language of the Czech population of Prague he reached the masses. Up to 3000 people have followed his sermons in the Bethlehem Chapel. Hus, John Wyclif influenced by the theology, criticized the abuses of the Church in his time. On March 9, 1410 Pope Alexander V issued a bull against Hus. But he preached sermon despite ban under broad approval of Prague on to the Bethlehem Chapel. When the city of Prague was occupied little later because Hus with the interdict, the pressure grew on him. In 1412 he had to leave the city. This is the time where the Bethlehem Chapel played a certain role in the ( church ) policy of the entire Christian West to end.

But even after the burning of Hus at the Council of Constance (6 July 1415) was the Bethlehem chapel under his successor Jakobellus of Mies ( 1414-1429 ), a center of the Reformation in Bohemia aspirations and a place of the Hussite sermon. That was the glory of the chapel not faded as Protestant preaching place even after more than a hundred years, is the fact that Thomas Müntzer when staying in Prague on June 23, 1521 preached here, but not in Czech, but in Latin.

Again, a century later, after the royal charter of Rudolf II with his brother Cyrus, who will be inaugurated on December 4, 1609 for the first time a member of the Bohemian Brethren preacher at the Bethlehem Chapel.

Catholic chapel, part demolition and model of other Protestant churches

With the Battle of White Mountain (8 November 1620) and the subsequent entering recatholicization in Bohemia also changed the fate of the Bethlehem Chapel. In 1622 it passed into the possession of the Jesuit Order. From 1638 to 1661 the chapel was owned by the University of Prague. 1661 Bethlehem chapel was transformed by the Jesuits in a Catholic church.

In 1786, the Bethlehem chapel was deconsecrated and partially demolished soon after. In their place, using existing walls was an apartment building. Thus, the fate of this historic structure appeared to be sealed.

Even if there were no more Bethlehem Chapel in Prague at this time, so there was still Bethlehem churches Protestant Czechs, for example in Berlin. Quite deliberately, after the great role model in Prague Church of Czech exiles in Berlin's Friedrichstadt Bethlehem church was called. This was built 1735 to 1737 under the leadership of Friedrich Wilhelm Diterichs church was located on the wall, corner Krausenstraße. It was destroyed in the Second World War and later demolished. The name change of the Rixdorfer village church in Berlin 's Neukölln district, which is called Bethlehem Church since 1912, goes back to the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague.

Rebuilding

It was the communists after the Second World War Reserved to return the Bethlehem Chapel Prague cityscape. The former history tied to the importance of the building as a place of national identity and the resistance of the masses of the people against the feudal society in the late Middle Ages. The Communist Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia Klement Gottwald reasoned reconstruction with the words: "Even before half a millennium Prague fought for communism. "

Taking into account ancient documents and after a thorough archaeological investigation, the new Bethlehem chapel was reconstructed with the house of the preacher on the old foundations under the direction of architect Jaroslav Fragner in the years 1950-1954, with the wall fragments were used. In principle, the present Bethlehem Chapel is a new building, only the door through which Hus entered the pulpit, is preserved in the original.

In 1987 the Czech Technical University in Prague took over the chapel. She let them reconstruct their own expense. The decoration of the walls of the hall consists of replicas of original paintings, texts Hussite songs from the hymnal of valuable Jistebnice as well as murals for the Council of Constance. The belonging to the Bethlehem Chapel exhibition was conceived fundamentally restructured after the Velvet Revolution. On 26 March 1992 the official reopening took place. Following the tradition of the University of Bethlehem Chapel is now the ballroom of the Czech Technical University.