The Bone Church

Part of the magic of travel is the ability to transport us from our everyday and, it sometimes feels, almost across time. I had visited Prague once before but one of the main reasons I wanted to revisit was to see the Bone Church at Kutna Hora, a two hour train journey from Prague.
I had planned the day perfectly, checked out the timetables, how long it would take to walk from the train station to the church – then promptly forgot to pop the battery in my camera from its trusty overnight spot on ‘charge’. Thank goodness for iPhones!
The train was a rickety old affair, with stiff sash windows and faux leather seats. And it couldn’t have been more perfect. There is something so calming about train travel, where you relinquish control and have nothing else to do but sit back and watch the world slip by. The world did indeed slip by and it wasn’t long until we felt as though we had travelled backwards through the years to the height of communism in the Eastern Bloc.
The countryside was vast but the buildings passing by were grey stone affairs with tiny balconies that spoke of an austerity and secrets hidden within the walls. The station at Kutna Hora was old and quiet, the streets of the town lined with more of those old grey apartment buildings, a faded Pepsi sign and homes that were older still. It all felt as though we were walking back, back towards a destination that, perhaps, defied time.
Then, at last, the Bone Church! I had first read about the church years ago and the image of bones stacked upon bones, of the dead being used to create something artful so as to have, in effect, a life after death, was intriguing.
The bones of more than 40,000 people decorate the tiny church. Stacked in pyramids in each corner of the ossuary, made into chalices, a coat of arms, crucifixes, a chandelier. Strings of skulls garland the ceiling: more still are stacked on silver stands topped with plaster cherubs. Strangely enough, there seemed to be no hand or feet bones. Are they too fine to withstand the ages? These bones, and their ability to get into my imagination, are not quite finished with me yet.
This ossuary is centuries old and stands as a monument to the fragility and impermanence of life. To some it seems gruesome, but it gave me a sense of peace. Time will have its way with us all, but the Bone Church reminds us that we are all the same under the skin and that there is beauty even in death.