Church of Saint Adalbert of Prague, Baroque church in Ústí nad Labem-centrum, Czech Republic
The Church of Saint Adalbert is a single-nave Baroque building with a rectangular plan and a right-angled presbytery, flanked by two square towers with low pyramidal roofs. Its three-part facade carries statues of St. Wenceslas and St. Ludmila from 1722, and the cross above the fronton was re-erected in 1992.
The first written mention of a church dedicated to Saint Adalbert dates from 23 April 1186, when Prince Bedřich married his daughter here to the son of the Margrave of Meissen. After a fire in 1538 it was rebuilt and re-roofed in 1555, and in 1617 the mayor Arnošt Schösser z Emblebenu brought the Dominicans, making it a monastery church. Italian architect Octavio Broggio rebuilt it in Baroque style between 1715 and 1730.
The church is named after Saint Adalbert, but since 2017 it has served as the parish church of the Greek Catholic parish, so services follow the Byzantine rite rather than the Roman one. Czech-language Masses were last held here around 1626; local Czechs only won their restoration from the Litoměřice bishopric in 1881.
The church stands below Mírové náměstí in the city centre, its main façade turned toward the town. Since 2017 it has served as the parish church of the Greek Catholic parish, so Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic services alternate; check the Litoměřice diocese schedule before visiting. The building was adapted for exhibition use in the 1990s.
The church interior was stripped of its decoration in 1970, when the Krnov organ was installed; its designers, Jiří Reinberger and K. Hron, made it the second-largest organ in the Czech Republic. The monastery community was dissolved in 1935 and the Oblates took over until 1945, when the Dominicans returned.
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