Church of Saint Anthony of Padua
From Prague-wiki
The Church of Saint Anthony of Padua (Kostel svatého Antonína Paduánského in Czech) is a Neo-Gothic parish church on Strossmayerovo náměstí. It is a significant landmark in the centre of Holešovice.
Contents |
[edit] History
By the end of the 19th century, Holešovice-Bubny was already a populous area with 400 houses and more than 10,000 inhabitants. In 1884 it was joined into Prague. Until the beginning of the 20th century, the mass for local residents was held in the nearby church of Saint Climent, which belonged under the parish of Saint Gotthard in Bubeneč. This church however is quite small and thus was not sufficient for this growing part of Prague. Therefore an association for construction of a new church in Holešovice was established in 1886. In 1899 a new parish was created for Holešovice (at Saint Climent) and in 1906 the plans for a new church were finally completed by Architect František Mikš.
The foundation stone of the building was laid on 25 October 1908 an a land donated by landowner Josef Richter from Bubny. The construction works of this Neo-Gothic church were carried out in 1908-1914. The church was consecrated on 25 October 1914 by the Prague Archbishop and cardinal Lev Skrbenský from Hříště.
In total eight bells were confiscated from both the towers during the First and the Second World Wars.
[edit] Architecture
The front face of the church with two towers is modelled after the church of Our Lady before Týn and it completes the area of Strossmayerovo náměstí on the east side. It is a three-nave church with 21 metres high vault. The towers are 58 metres tall (63 metres with the spikes). They have four floors with the lower two floors separated by the cornices. The towers’ windows with lancets are different sizes and shapes on every floor. The largest windows are on the top floor. The roof has the shape of Neo-Gothic taper square.
[edit] Bells
The south tower now houses a bell called Climent, made in 1572 by bell-founder Brikcí from Cimperk. The bell’s weight is around 490 kg.
The second tower houses the bell called Wenceslas but also known as Liberty Bell, because it is a copy of the American Liberty Bell from 1753. It weights 1200 kg and it was originally a present from the president Thomas Woodrow Wilson to T. G. Masaryk in memory of the Independence Declaration of the Czechoslovakia. The story of the bell is quite remarkable. Czechoslovakia was founded in 1918 but several years later the bell ended up forgotten in the town of Užhhorod in Carpathian Ruthenia, which was then part of the country. We don’t know if the bell was used there at all. Only in 1928, the bell was re-discovered and moved to Prague. But again, nobody knew what to do with it. It ended up in a warehouse, which was probably the reason why it escaped destruction during the Second World War. After the war, the time was not right either for putting it into use and the bell resurfaced in the mid 1950s in records of the Monument Preservation Institute. The institute recommended the bell to be hung in the church of Saint Anthony in Holešovice, as all its bells had been requisitioned. But only in 1980s the communist regime allowed it to be hauled up to the tower and put into use.
The Sanctus bell turret also houses one bell (about 22 kg in weight) made by the bell-founder Karel Bellmann from Prague. This bell was originated in the second quarter of the 18th century and was brought here from the church of St. Climent in Holešovice-Bubny.
