Church of St. Michael is a Baroque temple, one of the most beautiful in Olomouc. Already at the beginning of the 13th century, there was a chapel devoted to St. Archangel Michael. To which the Czech king Václav I donated this Chapel to a group of Dominicans who stopped in Olomouc on their way from Italy to Poland. Their arrival dates to 1230. The Dominicans have done very well. They built a large Gothic church, which was completed and consecrated in 1251.The Gothic church, suffered so much during the Swedish wars, that the Prior of the monastery Antonín Peretius decided to demolish. On its foundations, using a large part of the perimeter masonry, built a new baroque church. The new church was built in 1676. It was finished and sanctified on 9 May 1707 by the bishop of Olomouc, Julius of Braidy. However, the Dominicans did not enjoy the new beautiful church for long . Emperor Joseph II. abolished the Dominican monastery by the Court Decree from 1784, as well as a number of other monasteries and churches. So that when the church was rescued, it became a parish church and rectory. Then Olomouc archbishops in two stages built it into the huge building complex it is today.
Church of St. Michal is considered the first dome-shaped structure of the North-Italian type in Moravia. The first church builder was the imperial architect Giovanni Pietro Tencala, who has many buildings in Moravia, including the Basilica of the Virgin Mary at Svatý Kopeček. The second church builder was the Italian architect Domenico Martinelli. These two have given the church with an unique character. There is another similar church is, according to the sources, somewhere near Naples. Church of St. Michal is a specific three-domed church built to illustrate one truth that God is love. The first dome of the altar in the ceiling fresco shows God the Father as the Creator. The last dome (at the organ) shows God the Son with the winning cross, and the middle dome shows the symbol of a dove, like love connecting Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Three domes - one temple; God in three persons, blessed Trinity .Also, the orientation of the church itself is not accidental, since early Christian times, the Christian churches were built with an altar to the east (where possible). This is because the faithful faced the rising sun during their pray, which is the clearest image, a symbol of Christ who as the light of the world rose from the darkness of the tomb, and as the sun is again and again coming from the east, coming again and again to offer his friendship, to become the light of people's lives. On Sunday morning, with two upper windows in the eastern wall above the altar, there are two massive streams of light that are like two light arms, like a light that embraces worshipers.
www.svatymichal.cz - 1382 - Church of St. Michael
