Our Lady Victorious & the Infant Jesus of Prague
Why is it significant?
Step inside the church on Karmelitská and let your eyes adjust to the gold. Then look for the glass case on a side altar. Inside stands a tiny figure, less than half a metre tall, a child with a crown, one hand raised in blessing, wearing a robe stiff with embroidery.
Key Facts
| Place | Our Lady Victorious & the Infant Jesus of Prague |
|---|---|
| Address | Karmelitská 9, 118 00 Praha 1, Czechia |
| Geo Coordinates | 50.08570, 14.40350 |
| Part of Walk | Prague's Secret Lesser Town: Kampa, the Devil's Stream & the Embassy Garden of 1989 |
| Generated | Generated |
Step inside the church on Karmelitská and let your eyes adjust to the gold. Then look for the glass case on a side altar. Inside stands a tiny figure, less than half a metre tall, a child with a crown, one hand raised in blessing, wearing a robe stiff with embroidery. People kneel in front of it in a dozen languages.
The building began as a Protestant church. German Lutherans built it in the 1610s and dedicated it to the Holy Trinity. Then came the Battle of White Mountain in 1620, the Protestant defeat, and the church was handed to the Catholic Carmelites, who renamed it Our Lady Victorious, after the victory that had ruined its builders. History has a sense of irony here.
The little figure is made of carved wood covered in wax, and it came from Spain. In 1628 a noblewoman, Polyxena of Lobkowicz, gave it to the Carmelites. During the Thirty Years' War the church was looted, and the statue was thrown behind the altar with its hands broken off. Legend says that years later a priest found it and heard a voice: give me back my hands, and I will give you peace.
Since then, the Infant Jesus of Prague has become one of the most famous religious images in the world, with copies in churches from the Philippines to Mexico and Brazil. It owns a wardrobe of around a hundred robes sent as gifts from all over the world, and the Carmelite sisters change them according to the colours of the church year. Tradition says one of them was embroidered by Empress Maria Theresa herself. In 2009 Pope Benedict the Sixteenth came to visit and brought it a crown.
Whatever you believe, it is extraordinary that a doll-sized figure in a side street of Malá Strana draws pilgrims from across the globe. Now continue a short way south along Karmelitská. Next comes another church, but one that stopped being a church long ago... and now it is full of music.