Two Legends of the Loreta

For more than three centuries, time in this
former outskirts of Prague has been measured
by the bells hung in the slender onion-domed
tower of Prague’s Loreto, known there just as
‘The Loreta’. However its architectural and
spiritual core is not this picturesque belfry but
the Holy House set in its courtyard, in a complex
of galleries, arcades and chapels.
Loretos, some of the best known places of
pilgrimage in the Christian world, were smallish
houses constructed as exact replicas of the
“Holy House” (Santa Casa) in the Italian town
of Loreto. It was believed that this was the
house in which the Holy family had lived in
Nazareth and where the Archangel Gabriel had
foretold the birth of Jesus to the Virgin Mary…