Strahov Monastery

Strahov Monastery (Czech: Strahovský klášter) is a Premonstratensian abbey founded in 1143 by Jindřich Zdík, Bishop John of Prague, and Vladislaus II, Duke of Bohemia.

[1] After his pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1138, the bishop of Olomouc, Jindřich Zdík, took hold of the idea of founding a monastery of regular canons in Prague.

After Zdík's first unsuccessful attempt to found a Czech variant of the canons' order at the place called Strahov in 1140, an invitation was issued to the Premonstratensians, whose first representatives arrived from Steinfeld in the Rhine valley (now Germany).

He tried to raise the spiritual life of the monastery and, as a visitator circarie of the Premonstratensian order as a whole in Bohemia, he also devoted attention to the material aspect of things.

He reconstructed the church, renewed the abbey buildings, established workshops, built a new dormitory and refectory, and had the monastery gardens newly laid out.

He continued in the expensive work started by Lohelius, completed the lower cloisters and prelature, and even erected a new building in the form of St. Elizabeth's Hospital, as well as adding out-buildings and a brewery.

Originally it was a votive church whose construction was started by Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1602 as an expression of thanks for the end of the plague in 1599.

Moreover, he gained renown for himself through his participation in the making of the Vltava navigable in the sector called St John's Rapids (Svatojánské proudy).

After the departure of the Swedes, Kryšpin Fuk had the damaged abbey repaired again, his work being continued by the Abbots Ameluxen, Sutor, and Franck.

This work brought the extensive building activity at Strahov Monastery to an end and the following generations of abbots devoted their attention merely to minor architectural repairs, all under the influence of contemporary fashion, and to maintenance of the area as a whole.

The monastery survived in this way until 1950, when it was taken over by the communist regime, the religious being interned and placed in civil employment, very few of them being able to work in the clerical administration as priests of the diocese.