The Sedlec Ossuary ( Kostnice Sedlec) is a Roman Catholic Church in Sedlec, The Czech Republic, famous for its unusual, organic decorations.
Unlike other churches that like to use religious paintings and religious jewelery as decorations, this one uses between 40,000 and 70,000 human bone. Built especially as an ossuary in 1400, the macabre decorating started in 1870 when the Schwarzenberg family hired a woodcarver to arrange all the heaps of bones in order. You can see the result in the photos, but just so u know, there are 4 giant bell-shaped mounds in each corner of the chapel, an enormous chandelier which contains at least one of every bone in one’s body in the center of the chapel, and a signature of the artist, executed in bone, of course, and other “works of art”.
Friday, May 30, 2008
The Skeleton Church
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7 comments:
we have in portugal one church like that to... it is in evora!
Small correction: the first photo is of a larger church in the town/village of Kutna Hora, and the others are of the smaller church which hosts the Sedlec Ossuary with all its magnificent skeletal decorations.
FUCK!
Until today i thought that at my city ( Evora, Portugal) exist the only church decorated with bones. The church name is CAPELA DOS OSSOS.
Damn, christians are really sick.
I see dead people ._.
Tomascz, this is NOT a mainstream Christian practice. However, it IS a mainstream Christian teaching that death is simply a 'gateway to larger life', and therefore is not necessarily something to be feared or hated
Is this a working church? I can't imagine getting married or having a child baptized there, although a funeral or Good Friday service would certainly be impressive.
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