Kutná Hora, Part 2: The Cathedral of Our Lady

So, after we left the Bone Church, my friends and I walked the few hundred meters to the *deep breath* Cathedral of the Assumption of Our Lady and St John the Baptist. For starters, I'm not sure if it's a cathedral or just a church. Yes, there is a difference, and it's not about size--cathedrals are the seat for a bishop, so generally every diocese only has one. I can't find evidence one way or the other as to whether Our Lady is a true cathedral or simply a church built in the cathedral style. I suspect the latter, but I also suspect that no-one but me cares, so I'll just call it Our Lady and move on with it.

Whatever you call it, it is certainly striking. Even if the area around it is less than picturesque.

The entire Sedlec complex, including the ossuary, was originally part of the first Cistertian monastery in Bohemia, founded in 1158. Our Lady was built between 1290 and 1320 in a blend of French and German Gothic styles to serve as the chapel for the thriving monastic community. In the 1400s, however, the church was seized by the Hussites, a group of proto-Protestant religious reformers who repelled several violent campaigns from the Catholic Church. The Hussites burned the church and killed some of the monks, while the rest scattered. Fractured skulls believed to be those of some slain monks are on display in the church. Fun, right?

Our Lady stayed in this semi-ruined state for almost three hundred years, before being rebuilt by the returned Cistertians around the turn of the 17th century in the Baroque style which dominates so much of Prague. They didn't attempt to restore the church to what it had been, but instead blended the Gothic exterior and architecture with a Baroque interior and design that is at once both jarring and surprisingly harmonious. The architect called it, simply enough, Baroque Gothic.

I think I may need to invest in a better camera, because my phone is so not doing this stuff justice.

The interior is bright and flooded with light, featuring clear windows with only small borders of different colors, creating a faintly rainbow effect. The walls and ceiling are white and pale yellow, adding to the general sunniness and lightness of the space. The back portion of the church, where visitors enter, has also been stripped of pews, creating a sort of art gallery/history exhibition, adding even further to the sense of openness.

You can just about make out the color outlines on the windows. I rather enjoyed those.

On the ceiling above the transept is a beautiful fresco dedicated to the Holy Trinity being tended by cherubs.

The ceiling was SO HIGH -- about 90 feet -- that I had to zoom even to get this level of detail. 

I kept trying to get the fresco in relation to, like, anything else. This is the best I did.

Below the fresco, on either side of it, are two reliquaries. 

St. Felix

St. Vincent

Now, no resource I can easily find is able to tell me *which* St. Vincent and St. Felix these relics belong to. Still, relics! These were given to the church by the Pope a few decades after the restoration, though, as I said, even the church's website doesn't really give any information about these two saints. That's just how common relics are in European churches of stature.

Now *that's* what I call Baroque.

The side chapel of the "Fourteen Holy Helpers," a collective of saints whose intercession was sought, especially for sickness, is much more traditionally Baroque, with ornate gold, marble, and multiple murals. Oddly, it almost feels out of place compared to the rest of the church, which is grand, but spare.

It's actually displayed on a little rotating turntable, so all my pictures had a bit of blur.

Our Lady is also home to possibly the oldest Gothic monstrance in the world, an ornate and beautifully wrought piece standing just under a meter in height. Made from gold-plated silver, it dates from the late 1300s and is an exceptional specimen of Gothic decorative arts. It wasn't made for the Sedlec church, but it has been housed there for many years, except for when it's on display in some museum or other. Of all the things in the church, the monstrance is by far the most heavily guarded and secured.

Nearby, there's are wonderfully crafted spiral stairway that lead to the space opposite the pipe organ...

I think that's St. Felix down there. I think.

...and from there, you can take another staircase into a dimly lit space where you find a wooden walkway that would be equally at home at a construction site.

The walkway takes you over the vaults of the left side aisle of the church, just under the roof. You're essentially in the attic. There's no Gothic splendor or Baroque excess, just stonework and architectural support. You can even see the sunlight coming in through the roof tiles. At the end, however, you come out at the back of the church, in the choir loft.

The sheer size and scale of the church is made even clearer when viewed from the back and from an elevated height. I closed my eyes and was able to imagine how the sound from the choir loft would project outward, echoing off the walls and vaults, before descending on the worshippers below.

Just for perspective, that's the choir loft in the back there.

The *another deep breath* Cathedral of the Assumption of Our Lady and St John the Baptist isn't the most elaborately decorated or richly appointed church in Czechia--we saw two others on the same day that were more so--but the combination of color, design, architecture and history were almost as impressive in their way. Our Lady has been on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 1995, along with the old center of Kutná Hora and St. Barbara's Church, and it's not difficult to see why. So, while the ossuary is a "maybe visit," Our Lady is a "try to visit."

Next stop, St. Barbara's! Spoiler: it's a must visit.

A real place; not Hogwart's.