Church of St. Anne

opening hours

regular roman catholic masses

• Sunday 8:00

history

Contrary to traditional alignment, the church is oriented westward, placing its entrance on the eastern side. The eastern façade features two low flanking turrets, with the façades of the side aisles and a small bell tower adjoining them on either side.
The church has a nave and two aisles, with galleries running along its longitudinal sides. The raised central nave is considerably wider than the side aisles, above which the galleries are situated. The nave has a flat ceiling formed by transverse beams and a decorative longitudinal beam. These beams are embellished with painted ornamental bands and polygonal medallions, while the square panels along the sides of the ceiling feature Greek crosses. Dark bands frame the central ceiling panels. Painted ornamentation also decorates the central section of the walls above the gallery arches, separating panels containing Marian emblems and quotations from the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which extend along both sides of the nave.
The balustrade of the organ loft alternates between rounded and polygonal forms. The section of the nave beneath the loft on the western side is enclosed by a grille surmounted by the Carmelite coat of arms. The architectural articulation of the nave is complemented by wall paintings.
The original high altar was removed in the 1960s. The rear wall of the sanctuary retains its original Art Nouveau decoration, depicting four prophets in a palm grove, and a fixed, five-sided stained-glass window portraying Jesus, installed in 1915 through donations from churchgoers. The original painting depicts, from left to right, David with his harp, the prophet Isaiah, the prophet Jeremiah holding a staff, and St John the Baptist with a cross. Two flying angels were added later, holding an inscription that reads: “St Anne, Mother of the Mother of God, pray for us.” During the St Wenceslas celebrations in 1929, a fresco designed by the architect Jaroslav Majer was painted on the upper part of the triumphal arch above the sanctuary. It depicts St Adalbert and St Wenceslas leading the patron saints of the Czech lands before the Virgin Mary to intercede for the nation. At the front of the left-hand aisle stands an altar bearing a painting of St Anne, mother of the Virgin Mary. Opposite is a smaller altar with a painting of the Virgin Mary and the Baby Jesus.
The linden wood statues of saints date from 1933—1937. St Anthony of Padua and St Joseph with the Christ Child stand on the left side of the church, with St Jude Thaddaeus and St Thérèse of Lisieux on the right. The sacristy adjoins the northern side of the rectangular sanctuary. The altar of St Joseph is one of the church’s original furnishings. Other items were brought here when the church was founded, either from older churches or religious buildings that no longer existed. In the left-hand aisle, these include an early Baroque altar dedicated to St Anne, dating from the late seventeenth century, and a pulpit from the mid-eighteenth century. The Baroque pews and staircase balustrade also predate the church, while the paintings in the galleries date from the early eighteenth century.

A Carmelite monastery was founded beside the church in 1916. The monastery building (No 1268) was constructed that same year following plans drawn up by the builder Antonín Procházka. The monastery closed shortly after the departure of the Carmelites in 1922. In 1923, their residence was converted into a rectory for the newly established parish, while the remaining monastery premises were converted into flats. In 1949, the church and rectory were unsuccessfully offered to the Dominicans at the Church of St Giles in the Old Town, after which religious orders and monasteries were banned from operating. A wing with connecting passages at ground-floor and gallery level was built between the monastery and the church, forming an interconnected complex that housed the parish office after the closure of the monastery.

The Beuron Art School took its name from the Benedictine congregation founded in 1866 at the Monastery of St Martin in Beuron. Its founder was Peter Lenz, a painter, sculptor and architect who developed a distinctive, exclusively sacred artistic style governed by strict monastic rules and rejecting ostentatious ornamentation.