skeleton church

Entertainment Media
1

About 70 kilometres east the capital of the Czech Republic, Prague, lies a small town called Sedlec. It might have been an ordinary enough town, if not for its extraordinary church. The inside of this church is decorated with artworks made of human bones!

The story begins in 1218, when a certain abbot Henry made a pilgrimage to the holy land and brought back a jar full of soil, which he spread over the Church’s cemetery. As a result the cemetery came to be regarded as sacred and turned into a popular burial spot. By 1318, more than 30,000 bodies were buried there and by 1511, it had become necessary to remove the older bones to make place for the new ones. These later became the material for the macabre creations. In 1870 a local woodcarver was hired by the Duke of Shwartzenberg to decorate the inside of the church with the human remains (approximately 40,000 sets of bones.
This was shown recently in AXN, Ripley’s "Believe it or Not" :smiley:

[thumb=D]380216.JPG[/thumb]
[thumb=D]380224.JPG[/thumb]
[thumb=D]380227.JPG[/thumb]
[thumb=D]380230.JPG[/thumb]

2

wow amazing :k:

3

interesting :k:

4

ahaan, :k:

5

Astaghfirullah - No respect for the dead - This is very sad indeed.

6

Just out of curiosity, is this church used for genuine prayer services or is it just now a type of 'museum'... ? Does it still regularly function as a normal church with weddings/baptisms/mass services etc.?

i am not certain, i am sure the rest of the church must be beautiful (architecturally most old churches are absolutely gorgeous); i can't imagine anyone who would want to get married with that type of background though... or anyone who would want to have their child baptized there. Wonder if it's still a church or has it been converted into a museum.