The church is made from the churchgoers, no really, it is...

[Blazer]

This is the Kutna Hora Cathedral in the Czech town of Sedlec, probably the most "gothic" of all the cathedrals built in the gothic era.

Looks like your normal everyday Cathedral, doesn't it? Well from the outside it indeed does but INSIDE the cathedral has a rather macabre secret.

During a seige in a mideavel war the cemetary of the Kutna Hora was unearthed and all who were burried there taken out for fear of having their graves robbed. The Monks stored away their skeletal remains in several chapels inside the cathedral where they remained for 400 years. Then in the 1800s one of those bone filled chapels was redecorated by a local woodworker who decided that those deceased churchgoers could still have a use for the community and Christianity after death.





It is estimated that the remains from over 40 000 people were used in this.

[gweimer]

Is that the cathedral they used in filming Blood and Chocolate?

[uwe]

I'm not horrified. Using skeletal remains in religious worship is part of many religions, Christianity is just one of them. Integrating them into a place of worship is unusual for us in this day and age where we prefer to painstakingly ignore the more physical aspects of death, but a look through the crypts of the Vatican or many old churches will show you that previous generations were in fact more upfront and in your face about the whole thing. The skeletal part of death was the thing you could grasp even if you were otherwise illiterate.

If these were the remains of, say, Muslim fighters from the Osamanic days paraded in a Christian church I'd have a bitter taste about it, but those skeletons there were used to commemorate, not desecrate or ridicule.

Just don't let a dog into that church!!!

Uwe

[Barklessdog]

Very cool. It reminds me of the Mexican skeleton holiday.


Bones yum!

[SKATE RAT]

Very cool. It reminds me of the Mexican skeleton holiday.


Bones yum!

that would be "Dia de los muertos" or day of the dead

[Blazer]

Yeah for when people are bored out of their skulls in the litteral sense... 

[drbassman]

Whew, weird! 

[hieronymous]

Human skeletons appear a lot in Tibetan Buddhism, from thigh-bone trumpets to bone-aprons to skull-cups. They serve a ritual purpose and remind us of impermanence. In Japanese Buddhism, we use "mindfulness beads," and sometimes the beads are shaped like human skulls. Here's one of mine: