Look for the tall pale stone facade characterized by a single towering structure on one side and massive dramatic statues of saints bursting from the wall directly above the entrance. You are standing before the Basilica of St. James the Greater, one of the largest and most historically layered churches in Prague.
Just a few minutes ago we saw the Church of Our Lady before Tyn, but this basilica has a distinct, rather eccentric personality of its own. It was originally founded in the thirteenth century for the Minorites, a mendicant or begging order of monks who relied entirely on charity. Fortunately for them, they had some tough neighbors. The local butchers' guild was headquartered just up the street. Whenever the church was threatened by invading armies or religious uprisings, the butchers would march down with their cleavers and violently defend the monks. There is even a stone plaque from 1615 still set into the church wall, warning that anyone who tries to rob the place will be hacked to pieces by the butchers.
Despite the butchers' protection, the church could not fight off the massive fire of 1689, which was set by political arsonists during a European succession conflict. The original Gothic roof collapsed, taking much of the interior with it. When the architect rebuilt it, he transformed the space into a Baroque masterpiece. He added a soaring barrel-vaulted ceiling intersected by lunettes, which are semi-circular architectural spaces that allow light to spill down into the nave, the main central aisle of the church. The interior is absolutely packed with twenty-two ornate altars and the largest organ in the Czech Republic, boasting over eight thousand individual pipes.
But the real fascination of St. James lies in its delightfully morbid legends. If you look closely inside the church entrance, hanging high up on a meat hook, you will spot a shriveled mummified human arm dangling in the shadows. The story goes that a thief hid inside the church after closing time to steal the jewels from a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary. As he reached out, the wooden statue miraculously came to life, grabbed his wrist, and held him in an iron grip. He was trapped there all night until the priest arrived the next morning. No one could pry the wooden fingers open, so the local butchers were called in to amputate the man's arm. The severed limb has hung there for over four centuries as a grim reminder of the Ten Commandments.
Equally terrifying is the true story of Count Vratislav of Mitrovice, a Chancellor whose magnificent marble tomb sits inside the basilica. The Count suffered from taphophobia, a paralyzing fear of being buried alive. When he passed away in the early eighteenth century, he was placed in a wooden coffin and sealed beneath a massive marble slab. A few days later, locals heard frantic muffled thudding from the grave. Assuming it was restless spirits, the priests simply poured holy water over the stone to quiet the noise. Decades later, when the tomb was opened to bury the Count's son, the monks made a horrifying discovery. The Count's wooden coffin was smashed to pieces from the inside, and his skeletal remains were found in a desperate frozen crouch against the unmoving marble slab above. He had indeed woken up, trapped in the dark.
It is a place where high art and dark history walk hand in hand. Feel free to linger, and when you're set, let's keep going.
