Discover This Bizarre Czech Church: Where Death Meets Art in Spirituality

[Davino]

The Sedlec Ossuary is a Roman Catholic chapel, located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints, part of the former Sedlec Abbey in Sedlec. The ossuary is estimated to contain the skeletons of between 40,000 and 70,000 people, whose bones have, in many cases, been artistically arranged to form decorations and furnishings for the chapel. 

A chandelier of bones, which contains at least one of every bone in the human body, hangs from the center of the nave with garlands of skulls draping the vault.

Other works include piers and monstrances flanking the altar, a coat of arms of the House of Schwarzenberg, and the signature of František Rint, also executed in bone.

 

What do you think is the importance of such temples? What role do they serve? This seems to be a common theme across cultures, Varanasi is another great example.

Skeletons forcefully remind us of all that we try to forget, deny and repress in our life. The obscure, the grotesque, the spooky, the shadow, the fearful, the pain, the suffering, the impermanence of form. The fact that we will experience death and that all that we hold dear in this world (Family, friends, romantic partner, children, home, possessions, unfulfilled dreams and goals, legacy, memories, knowledge and skills, identity, prestige, sense of self, responsibilities, health, beliefs, body and mind...) EVERYTHING will vanish with our last outbreath.

Death is a compulsory experience. Better get ready

Edited September 26, 2024 by Davino