Strahov, Abbey of

Strahov Monastery (Czech: ) is a Premonstratensian abbey founded in 1143 by Bishop Jindřich Zdík, Bishop John of Prague, and Duke Vladislav II. It is located in Strahov, Prague, Czech Republic.

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. He had the support of the bishops of Prague and the Duke of Bohemia Soběslav I and -- after his death -- Vladislav II. 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 (Germany).

The religious began to build their monastery first of wood, with a Romanesque basilica as the center of all spiritual events in Strahov. The building was gradually completed and the construction of the monastery stone buildings continued, in order to replace the provisional wooden living quarters with permanent stone. In 1258, the monastery was heavily damaged by fire and later renewed.

The monastery continued functioning until the period of the Hussite movement, when it was attacked and plundered by the citizens of Prague in 1420. Books, articles of worship, and the furnishings of both church and convent were burned. Although the building did not sustain great damage from an architectural viewpoint, the monastery took a long time to recover.

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