Most Holy Trinity Monastery in Slaný

Our second monastery at the outskirts of Prague

The monastery in Slaný was originally Franciscan but today is Carmelite. Its foundation in 1655 was one of the first signs of the revival of the region, which had been devastated by the Thirty Years' War. The building work was commissioned for the Franciscans by Bernard Ignác of Martinice, Count of Smečno and Supreme Burgrave in Prague, who in the same year had a golden crown made for the Infant Jesus of Prague.

The Franciscans continued to live in the monastery until 1950, when it was closed down by force by the communist regime. Virtually all the fittings and furnishings of the monastery, including books and pictures, were destroyed or stolen, and the brothers were interned. The monastery complex was subsequently used in turn as a prison, a driving school, a musical school, and a zoo, and gradually fell into a state of disrepair. Although the municipal authorities tried to save the building as a historical monastery, the years of neglect left their mark, as can be seen from the present depressing state of the interior of the church.

Since 1995 Discalced Carmelites have lived in the monastery. The house is used as a prayer house and for training new members of the religious community. The monastery has experienced a new flowering as a place of beauty and has become a place which is visited by people searching for a peaceful setting for personal prayer.