Strange Fashions in Church Decoration
SOMBER church decorations have gone to the extreme in a village near Kutna Hora, Czechoslovakia. The gloomy interior of the All Saints’ church there is made even more depressing by the display of bones from 10,000 people.
Human bones are fashioned into chandeliers and candlesticks with grinning skulls acting as candleholders. Festoons of skulls drape from the ceiling to the walls and across archways like party decorations. In a dark corner can be seen the confessional with a mound of skulls piled high on its top. Against one wall is a coat of arms formed entirely of neatly arranged bones of various sizes. At four spots in the church are twelve-foot-high pyramids of neatly stacked bones with rows of skulls artistically placed at regular intervals. The pyramids are crowned with five or six layers of skulls. Other orderly piles of bones can be seen here and there about the church, some even having skillfully built tunnels. Even the altar has grisly decorations of human skulls.
Here is what the Catholic publication Home Messenger of March, 1954, says about these gruesome decorations: “Some curious facts present themselves. For example, the bones and skulls were taken from virtually every part of the human frame and all, apparently, from adults. Moreover, extraordinary skill was needed to create the bizarre, intricate designs of the chapel’s interior. Inspection shows that extreme care was exercised in selecting bones of exact sizes and shapes for particular patterns. As one ingenious example, the original decorators used broken bones which during life had not been properly set and had knitted into strange shapes, and, along with the crooked bones of the deformed, made such letters as J and H and difficult designs requiring unusual form. No matter what the contours, the bones were forged into the patterns with infinite, painstaking care. The very chandeliers are made in faithful imitation of the heavy glass chandeliers of the period.”
The bones are believed to date from the fourteenth century, but there is no accurate information as to their origin. A clue might be found in the fact that many of the skulls have been dented by swords. Others are full of little holes that were evidently caused by the spiked hats used for torture during the inquisition that raged through Bohemia at that time.
But this is not the only church with such gruesome decorations. The church of Solferino, Italy, also has human bones on display. It has a wall lined with the skulls of dead soldiers.
Other churches throughout the world, however, are more conservative in their use of human bones. They display only a few selected ones for the veneration of the people.
This peculiar custom is in direct contrast with what is found in the Bible. In Bible times the dead were buried, not exhibited. God’s law to the nation of Israel did not allow for the display of dead bodies or the remains of bodies. In fact, it was defiling even to touch a dead body. “If any man in the field touch the corpse of a man that was slain, or that died of himself, or his bone, or his grave, he shall be unclean seven days.”—Num. 19:16, Dy.
If bones of a dead person were placed on an altar, the altar was considered defiled and unfit for future use. This was done by Josiah when he destroyed the places of false worship that had been set up by the Israelites. “And he slew all the priests of the high places, that were there, upon the altars: and he burnt men’s bones upon them: and returned to Jerusalem.”—4 Ki. 23:20, Dy. 2 Kings 23:20
Since human bones defiled that altar, making it unusable, how can it be considered proper to drag the bones of dead humans into a place that is supposedly devoted to Christian worship? Neither the Israelites nor the early Christians decorated their places of worship with dead men’s bones. The dead were left in the ground, where they belonged.