St. Michael’s Church, Olomouc, Czech Republic

The three domes of the St. Michael’s Church are one of the most distinctive landmarks of Olomouc. This Baroque church was rebuilt from the original Gothic church and was consecrated probably in 1251. Outer walls and a vault at the end of the presbytery have been preserved of the original early Gothic building. The church was rebuilt into the current Early-Baroque form in 1673-1686 as proposed by G. P. Tencalla.

The single-nave structure with side chapels has a rich sculptural and painting decoration and is an example of the Baroque appeal aimed at the senses of the church-goers. The front face of the church is decorated with statues of the Virgin Mary and the Salvator Mundi by Ondřej Zahner and date from the 1830’s. A Gothic St. Alexei Chapel and a Gothic Cloister with cross vaulting adjoin the church building.

The interior was re-decorated in the Baroque style after the fire of 1709. In the years 1892-1898 the church underwent a Neo-Baroque reconstruction.

References:

Olomouc Tourism

Religious sites in Czech Republic

User Reviews

Radoslav Šebela (2 years ago)
Nejsem věřící, o to více musím smeknout před zážitkem, který kostel nabízí - nádherná architektura, bohaté dobové zdobení, pocit malosti a pokory, který dokáže jednotlivce duševně obohatit.

Maciej Gazdzik (2 years ago)
The most beautiful church in Olomuc

Luca M (2 years ago)
A stunning baroque church

Petr Ntemp (2 years ago)
#Tranqility, #Christian, #believe, #chorus, #St-Stephan's day 2018, I recommend

Michael Romero (3 years ago)
This is the most beautiful church in Olomouc. It was undergoing renovations but it was still stunning. The ceilings are magnificent. You can walk through the cloister area and up to the bell tower. Explore this church it has so many hidden and not so hidden treasures.

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Kalozha Church

The Kalozha church of Saints Boris and Gleb is the oldest extant structure in Hrodna. It is the only surviving monument of ancient Black Ruthenian architecture, distinguished from other Orthodox churches by prolific use of polychrome faceted stones of blue, green or red tint which could be arranged to form crosses or other figures on the wall.

The church is a cross-domed building supported by six circular pillars. The outside is articulated with projecting pilasters, which have rounded corners, as does the building itself. The ante-nave contains the choir loft, accessed by a narrow gradatory in the western wall. Two other stairs were discovered in the walls of the side apses; their purpose is not clear. The floor is lined with ceramic tiles forming decorative patterns. The interior was lined with innumerable built-in pitchers, which usually serve in Eastern Orthodox churches as resonators but in this case were scored to produce decorative effects. For this reason, the central nave has never been painted.

The church was built before 1183 and survived intact, depicted in the 1840s by Michał Kulesza, until 1853, when the south wall collapsed, due to its perilous location on the high bank of the Neman. During restoration works, some fragments of 12th-century frescoes were discovered in the apses. Remains of four other churches in the same style, decorated with pitchers and coloured stones instead of frescoes, were discovered in Hrodna and Vaŭkavysk. They all date back to the turn of the 13th century, as do remains of the first stone palace in the Old Hrodna Castle.

In 2004, the church was included in the Tentative List of UNESCO"s World Heritage Sites.

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