Church of the St. Giles

Mission of the Prague Church

The church is a parish church, and it means that it is the heart of the Christian parish - the smallest community of believers who meet together in order to celebrate the faith. This mainly concerns holy masses among which the Sunday's mass has an exceptional position; regular liturgies of the hours are celebrated there as well, there are organised Eucharistic adorations and occasionally also other worship or church services. The church is at the same time also a convent church, and it is therefore the place of liturgy life of the community of the Dominicans who are settled in the local Monastery. This is also in accordance with the nature and arrangement of the church.

 

Location of the St. Giles Church

St. Giles Church is situated in the very centre of the Prague Old Town, just a few minutes on foot from the Metro stations Staroměstská (A), Můstek (A/B) and Národní třída (B), not far from the Clementinum and Charles Bridge. To view the location of St. Giles Church please click here.

Arrangement of the St. Giles Church

The church was not originally designed as a monastery church, and therefore it does not have certain characteristic features of these churches. But still it is possible to easily recognise the choir serving to the Dominicans for the prayer of the liturgy of the hours.

 

Nevertheless, otherwise the church has maintained the arrangement typical of most parish churches before the Second Vatican Council. This is highlighted by many side altars, where holy masses are usually not celebrated anymore because the mass liturgy is concentrated around the main altar.

St. Giles Church

 

 

On side altars it is possible to see many representatives of the Dominican Order, and therefore you will easily recognise there not only the three leading figures of the Order - its founder, Holy Father Dominic, the great theologian St. Thomas Aquinas and one of the co-patronesses of Europe, St. Catherine of Siena - but also St. Albert the Great (known also as Albertus Magnus), St. Zdislava, St. Hyacinth and Blessed Czeslaw.¨

The church is at the same time also a convent church, and it is therefore the place of liturgy life of the community of the Dominicanswho are settled in the local Monastery. 

 

The most typical demonstration of the Dominican nature of the church can, however, be perceived in connection with the main altar picture and on ceiling frescoes. In the altar picture it is possible to see the scene of the Crucifixion with leading Saints of the order around, together with their attributes. All of them are oriented towards the crucified body of Christ because the mission of the Order is to preach the Christ crucified.

 

The ceiling of the main nave is decorated with a monumental fresco by Václav V. Reiner. Even though its name is sometimes referred to as "Celebration of the Dominican Order", the general composition clearly shows the idea, which is the victory over heretics.

 

The individual Dominican Saints are armed with their attributes as their weapons and defend the Basilica of St. John Lateran against attacking heretics. The importance which was always enjoyed by the teaching of St. Thomas in the Order's tradition is witnessed by the text on a ribbon of the heretics, whose English translation means "Remove Thomas (= his teaching) and the Church will fall".

  

The charisma of the Order always included the granting of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The order continues to provide this service and four Baroque carved confessional boxes still serve for their purpose. An especially wide offer of confession or spiritual discussion is traditionally offered in the Lent period and before great

feasts.

Patron of the Church

 

St. Giles is a patron of hunters, herdsmen, horse traders, ship-wrecked people, archers, beggars, leprous people, mothers nursing the child; Patron of Carinthia, Styria, Nuremberg and Osnabrück, Brunswick, Toulouse, Graz and Edinburgh.

 

St. Giles is patron against mental diseases, against infertility of people as well as animals, against drought, fire and storms, for help with a good confession, during desolation, helper in need (12 assistants), helper for forests.
 
His attributes are the doe, roe (next to him, injured with an arrow, which was saved by him), the arrow (sometimes stuck into the Saint's breast), Holy mass (served in the presence of the King, an angel is bringing the scroll on which the King's sins are written).

He always wears the Benedictine abbot's apparel and sometimes he has a book and a stick.

 

Legend St. Giles here
 

 

St. Giles, patron of the Church