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Skull Chapel

Ossuary chapel in Kudowa-Zdrój, Poland

Skull Chapel

Ossuary chapel in Kudowa-Zdrój, Poland

FieldValue
nameSkull Chapel
native_nameKaplica Czaszek
native_name_langpl
imagePoland - Czermna - Chapel of Skulls - interior 02.jpg
captionThe interior, featuring human long bones and skulls on the walls and ceiling
pushpin mapPoland
coordinates
locationKudowa-Zdrój
countryPoland
denominationCatholic
architectural typeChapel
functional statusPreserved
heritage designationCultural heritage site
designated date10 May 1960
styleBaroque
years built1776–1784

The Skull Chapel () is an ossuary chapel located in the Czermna district of Kudowa-Zdrój, in southwestern Poland. Built in Baroque style in the last quarter of the 18th century, the temple serves as a mass grave with thousands of skulls and human skeletal remains adorning its interior walls, floor, ceiling, and foundations. The Skull Chapel is the only such monument in Poland, and one of five in Europe.

Façade

History

The chapel was built in 1776 by local Bohemian parish priest Václav Tomášek. It is the mass grave of people who died during the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648), three Silesian Wars (1740–1763), and people who died because of cholera epidemics, plague, syphilis, and hunger.

Together with sacristan J. Schmidt and grave digger J. Langer, father Tomášek who was inspired by the Capuchin cemetery while on a pilgrimage to Rome, collected the casualties' bones, cleaned and put them in the chapel within 18 years (from 1776 to 1794). Walls of this small, baroque church are filled with three thousand skulls, and there are also bones of another 21 thousand people interred in the basement. The skulls of people who built the chapel, including Tomášek, were placed in the center of the building and on the altar in 1804. Inside are a crucifix and two carvings of angels with Latin inscriptions that read "arise from the dead" and "come to judgment". A recording inside the church available in three languages (Polish, Czech and German) explains the history of the chapel.

After World War II ended in 1945, a group of volunteers dedicated themselves to restoring the chapel to its former glory. Their efforts paid off, and the Skull Chapel was soon successfully restored.

References

References

  1. "Kaplica Czaszek: The Chapel of Skulls". Atlas Obscura.
  2. (14 October 2011). "6 Creepy Churches Made of Bones".
  3. Perrin Doniger. "This Creepily Beautiful Chapel in Czermna, Poland, Is Constructed Out of Thousands of Human Bones". Smithsonian.
  4. Koźmiński, Andrzej. (August 18, 1973). "Duszniki Zdrój, Kudowa Zdrój, Polanica Zdrój, Zieleniec i okolice". Sport i Turystyka.
  5. S.A., Wirtualna Polska Media. (17 December 2015). "Kaplica Czaszek - najbardziej niezwykłe miejsce Polsce".
  6. (4 November 2013). "Eerie Skull Chapel in Poland Made of 3,000 Bones (PHOTOS)". The Weather Channel.
  7. (2023-04-18). "Czermna's Skull Chapel: The Fascinating Exhibit of 3000 Skulls and Countless Bones".
Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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