Laughing in the Face of Death

[SarraceniaScott]

Travel through the countryside of the Czech Republic during winter and the sweeping valleys and wooded hills are covered in fresh snow, the village churches looking as though they belong in Narnia. Seventy kilometres through the valleys east of Prague is an unassuming 13th-century chapel in a village called Sedlec. And just like the magical world of Narnia, discovered beyond a wardrobe door, step over the chapel's humble threshold and you'll find a place where reality meets fantasy in a morbid yet majestic display of Slavic craftsmanship.

Sedlec is on the outskirts of Kutna Hora, a town that flourished in the 14th century thanks to vast deposits of silver. Sedlec would be similar to hundreds of other Czech villages if it weren't home to the chapel which draws a year-round stream of curious visitors.

Chapels are traditionally places where grief is softened by the quiet faith of believers and the consoling words of priests. But within this sacred place are the bones of 40,000 human skeletons, bright and white and arranged in sculptures that seem to poke fun at the mortality of human beings, who in turn are given to hushed laughter and many a smile of wonderment.

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[herenorthere]

My father & nephew were there last summer and, as far as I know, didn't take any bones from the collection or add any of theirs.

 

[JanW]

I wonder what church leaders in the past ages would have done with that chapel if another culture had created it...

BURN DEMONIC BUILDING...(or similar)

 

[herenorthere]

That response isn't limited to the past.  Church leaders of the present are prone to the same.  Especially when they get their claws into government power.  As a for instance, look back at what that fun-loving bunch in the Taliban did to Afghanistan's Bamiyan Buddhas - http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0301-04.htm.

 

[Ozzy]

I remember when the Taliban did that, it was in the news but nobody really cared. It is really a shame.

 

[SarraceniaScott]

Quote[/b] (0zzy @ Feb. 04 2006,10:54)]I remember when the Taliban did that, it was in the news but nobody really cared. It is really a shame.

I cared.

I also cared about the reports of barbaric treatment of women at the hands of the taliban.

<table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0"><tr><td>Code Sample </td></tr><tr><td id="CODE"><dalek mode>
EXTERMINATE!  EXTERMINATE!!!
</dalek mode>[/QUOTE]

As long as Bush keeps killing taliban, I'll try to forget I don't like him.

 

[Ozzy]

Bush never cared about Afganastan or killing Taliban, He kept his eye on the big prize, Saddam.

 

[Anoxos]

I think the bonekirche are beautiful, and that one in the Czech republic is the largest, but not the only one. I cried when I heard about the Buddhas. But then, I'm an archaeologist by training, so I hate to see the destruction of anything like that, religious or not.

The bonekirche have been controversial since their creation. They are certainly viewed differently now than they were then. But public opinion is still divided. Some hate them, some love them. Everyone is entitled to their opinions...