This quaint little section of old Prague is often missed by visitors – a pity. The large double-roofed building bearing more than a passing resemblance to a medieval manor house is in fact the Bethlehem Chapel, Unfortunately, owing to countless reconstructions; precious little of the original 14th-century hall survives. Yet the building is of great historical importance and was at the centre of the Reformation Movement.
From 1402 to 1413 Jan Hus preached at the Bethlehem Chapel, attracting a large number of people who came to listen to his provocative and ultimately heretical sermons criticizing the current social conditions and denouncing the Church establishment. The chapel’s symbolic significance was recognized by another religious rebel, the German Thomas Mfinzer who chose to preach here a century later than Hus in 1521 – the same year that Luther was condemned at the Council of Worms. Mfinzer went on to lead a peasant’s revolt against the German princes and was executed for his pains.
From 1609 to 1620 the chapel belonged to the Union of Czech Brethren; it then passed into the hands of the Jesuits and remained under their ownership until the Order was abolished in 1773. Most of the chapel was then demolished and a large dwelling house was built within the confines of the remaining walls.
In 1949 the house too was demolished and as, thirty years earlier, a preserved part of the chapel had been unearthed, archaeological research was set in motion and revealed that enough of the chapel had survived to enable the building to be reconstructed, this is what the visitor sees today.
The wooden parts of the chapel – the oratory, the choir and the pulpit – have been rebuilt and pupils of the Academy of Fine Arts were commissioned to decorate the walls with paintings illustrating the Jena Codex, Richenthal’s Chronicle and the Velislav Bible. The remainders of tracts written by Jan Hus are also on display in the chapel. Adjoining the chapel on its eastern side is the preacher’s house where Jan Hus lived and worked. Exhibits pertaining to his life and work and to the architectural development of the chapel are displayed here.
A short walk from Bethlehem Square, on the corner of Karoliny Svetle and Konviktska, is the ancient Kaple svateho Krize (Rotunda of the Holy Rood). This unusual Romanesque chapel dates from the early 12th century. Fragments of Gothic wall paintings are preserved in the nave.
The Podebrad Palace, situated to the rear of the Bethlehem Chapel on Retezova 3, includes an excellently preserved Romanesque cellar which, unusually, is open to the public. It was built at the end of the 12th century for the Lords of Podebrady, a powerful family which included a future King of Bohemia, George Podebrady (1420-71).