The weekend of July 13-15, a group from our community did a little tour of Slovakia, visiting the articular churches in Hronsek, Kežmarok, Istebné, Lestiny and Svätý Kríž, and the Orava castle. Below you can find some pictures from the trip.
The Articular Churches are stunning examples of the Slovak tradition. Forced to build places of worship under harsh articles (Articular Church), these Slovak Lutherans built masterpieces which continue to stand for resilience and love of the Gospel.
The articles imposed on the Lutheran Church from the 17th century included:
- the church must be built in a year
- the church must only use wood (so as not to have longevity)---this includes nails! The altars are painted to look like marble, but in fact everything, even the chandeliers are made of wood and there are not any nails!
- the church must be built outside the city walls and away from main streets
- no bell towers or any resemblance of a church on the outside
- no more than two churches per specified region.
