History

I didn’t know about these connections between Malta and Prague

Posted on Author Antoine P Borg
A photo of the church of St Anthony of Padua - Prague, Czechia

I no longer am surprised at unusual connections between places. I’ve travelled enough over the years to know many things are connected in the strangest of ways. Imagine my surprise though, when I found an unusual connection with St Anthony’s Church in Prague.

The Roman Catholic church in Prague’s Holešovice district is a prime landmark. You’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who lives or works in the neighbourhood who isn’t familiar with it. The church is dedicated to St Anthony of Padua and holds prime position in Strossmayerovo Square.

A photo of the church of St Anthony of Padua - Prague, Czechia
St Anthony’s – Prague, Czechia

The church faces east, as all good Catholic churches do1. In the afternoons, the sun lights up its honey-coloured facade, making it hard to ignore.

A photo of the foundations of St Anthony's Church - Prague, Czechia (Photo credit: Z. Bauer, J. Jungmann)
Foundations of St Anthony’s Church – Prague, Czechia (Photo credit: Z. Bauer, J. Jungmann)

The Church built the pseudo-Gothic structure in 1908. The ground had to be levelled since this part of the city is on a slope. Photos from this period show the copious landfill used for this.

The building is now one of the city’s cultural monuments. Builders finalised their work in 1911, but it still took a further three years to consecrate it. In 1916, the state crushed the church bells to use them for the war effort. In 1918, the American people gave a 1,200 kg copy of their Liberty Bell to the nascent Czechoslovakia. For various reasons, the city of Prague did not use the bell and had it on display. This changed in 1980 when they decided to install the Liberty Bell in this church2.

I’ve written about the Liberty Bell too.

A photo of St Anthony's Church - Prague, Czechia (Photo credit: D. Horak, J. Jungmann)
St Anthony’s Church – Prague, Czechia
(Photo credit: D. Horak, J. Jungmann)

I’m familiar with the church and the square because this is part of commute to and from work. My office is just off the Square so I walk past it several times a week.

This leads to two interesting coincidental connections; what are the odds that I would have chosen to work at a place next to a church named for a saint with my name, which has a bell modelled on one that Maltese people created?

Have you discovered any personal connections in your neighbourhood? Leave a comment and let us know!

  1. Facing East, Miner, Brad; The Catholic Thing; 2009-03-05[↩]
  2. History of the Parish; SvatyAntonin.cz; (Retrieved 2018-01-27) [Article in Czech] [↩]