Chrám Nanebevzetí Panny Marie

What does "Chrám Nanebevzetí Panny Marie" mean?  Good question.  It is the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.  It is the smaller of the two Kutná Hora cathedrals that I visited and also the simplest.

The exterior is really simple but that is at least partially because they are undergoing renovations and some of the statutes and thing are on display inside the church while they get things in order.

I really liked the stained glass windows.  They were really simple but the colored borders were quite attractive.

Although the building itself is simple, the building materials are somewhat unusual (maybe it is something in the Kutná Hora water).  When they were doing renovations, they found the bones of martyred Cistercian monks (they were dated 24th April 1421) stuffed in the walls and buried under the floor.  They have stuck those bones back where they were but put in windows so that you could take pictures of them.

There were also more official relics as well, which were donated when the church was consecrated as a cathedral in 1742 by Pope Benedict XIV.  St. Felix and St. Vincent are both labeled as "protomartyrs of antique Rome" which I believe means that they were supposed to have been killed by the Emperor Nero.  They were really short.  I bet they weren't much more than five feet tall.  The skeletons are all dressed up in semi-transparent medieval outfits so that you can see their bones but they do have masks on their faces.

St. Felix.  You can see his arm bones pretty clearly here.

St. Felix Reliquary

St. Vincent Reliquary

St. Vincent--see the ribs peeking out through the the shirt
 and between the bits of lace?

The cathedral has a a large collection of confessionals.  I don't know if it is just because they like them or if they just had them up in all kinds of different places.  These aren't your typical confessionals though.  They aren't enclosed so, theoretically, it would be easy to hear what people were saying.

  

This fellow, who sits on top of one of the
confessionals, looks mighty shocked
by whatever is being said inside.

       

This guy looks like he is from
the Lord of the Rings.

This is a very unattractive cupid
of some kind.

This is the Chapel of the Fourteen Helpers of Indigency.
It seems awfully sparkly and gilt for indigency.   

I really like the interior of the church.
It is pale yellow and white,very simple,
and decorated in curvy lines and designs.
I think it would make a really pretty quilt.

       




                       
This is the Chapel of the Virgin Mary of Sedlec (a tiny village that was incorporated into Kutná Hora).  I will say, that there does seem to be something kind of pagan about those pine trees just plopped down in the middle of the chapel.

They need some decoration.  That would be better.





Below are some of the statutes which used to be on the outside of the cathedral but which are temporarily inside for the reconstruction.




      

Jesuit College

The Jesuit College was a major political/religious institution at Kutná Hora.  It is in the massive, long, white building beside the St. Barbara's Cathedral.  It is now used as an art gallery.  It houses the Czech Museum of Fine Arts.  I was going to include a link to that but it doesn't display the nicest of paintings.  The Jesuit College is a UNESCO world heritage site.

  

Chrám Sv. Barbory

Chrám Sv. Barbory, or St. Barbara's Cathedral, is the major cathedral of Kutná Hora.  It is a fair walk up mountains (at least compared to the Netherlands) to get to it. and there is a very pretty approach.  It was a gorgeous view, even though it was gray and misty.  I can't even guess what it would be like if it was a clear sunny day out.  St. Barbara's is the spiky spire-filled building.  The white building is the old Jesuit College.

If you notice the terracing beside the cathedral (see, I told you it was on a mountain) that is all set up with grape vines and, if I understood them correctly, they make local wines here.  It makes it mighty picturesque place to walk around.

These are pictures of the vineyard and the valley from the St. Barbara Cathedral.

The walk up to the cathedral is lined with lots and lots of giant stone statutes.  It is impressive looking.

 

Some of the statues are more ghoulish than others. 

Front view of St. Barbara's Cathedral

There are some pretty impressive stained glass windows in the cathedral.  I don't know what the technique used was (and you probably can't really see it) but there is some pretty impressive shading and detail on the glass that make it look more like a painting than like a stained glass design.

The statue on the left is of a miner as the area was full of silver mines.  The backwards apron  is specifically so that the miner can use it as a sled to slide down into the mine.  Can you image what the climb out, at the end of the day must be like if the best way down in the morning is to sled down on special leather aprons?

The pulpit below is pretty elaborate.

        





I liked the Cathedral ceiling.  It looks kind of like an antique modified double wedding ring quilt with appliques.