Emmaus Monastery

The Emmaus Monastery is an abbey established in 1347 in Prague. It was the only Benedictine monastery of the Bohemian kingdom and all Slavic Europe. In the 1360s, the Cloisters of the Monastery were decorated with a cycle of 85 Gothic wall paintings with parallels from the Old and New Testaments. The Gothic cloisters also feature original faded frescoes with bits of Pagan symbolism from the 14th century. The monastery became a center of culture and art, students of Cyril and Methodius studied there in addition to Jan Hus. During the Second World War the monastery was seized by the Gestapo and the monks were sent to Dachau concentration camp. The monastery building and vaults were destroyed by a U.S. bombing raid on Prague on 14 February 1945. The modern roof with steeples was added in the 1960s. Returned to the Benedictine order in 1990, the monastery is administered by three monks, two of whom live there.