Church of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary and Fourteen Holy Helpers, Gothic church at Franciscan Monastery, Kadaň, Czech Republic.
The Church of the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary and Fourteen Holy Helpers is a Gothic structure with three aisles, ribbed vaults, and pointed windows typical of Late Gothic design. The interior layout features stone columns and carefully crafted ceiling work that demonstrates the scale and importance of this religious building.
The church and Franciscan monastery were founded by Jan Hasištejnský z Lobkovic (1450–1517), a nobleman and pilgrim to the Holy Land, after his journey there in 1493–1494. The Gothic church was consecrated in 1480, and the distance from the town hall to the monastery is said to match that from Pilate's house to Golgotha in Jerusalem. Jan Hasištejnský was buried in a stone tomb in the church.
The pilgrimage site is tied to the Fourteen Holy Helpers, whose veneration peaked in Kadaň in the 17th and 18th centuries. A legend tells of a nobleman who survived three days and nights on the gallows and was freed by the town councillors, after which the gallows moved and a chapel was built here. The first of fourteen Stations of the Cross chapels, near the Holy Gate, bears a shield showing a woman with fourteen children.
The church stands on a promontory above the Ohře River at the southwestern edge of Kadaň, on the old road to Klášterec nad Ohří. The monastery and church were declared a national cultural monument in 1995, and the church was restored between 2016 and 2021.
The distance from Kadaň's town hall to the monastery is said to match exactly the distance from Pontius Pilate's house to Golgotha in Jerusalem. The church also holds the stone tomb of its founder, Jan Hasištejnský z Lobkovic, a nobleman and pilgrim to the Holy Land.
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