The spooky season of Halloween and the long nights surrounding Christmas are now behind us, but that doesn’t mean our fascination with the spooky has abated. Check out this old church in the small village of Lukova, approximately 150 miles east of Prague.
Long said to be the home of ghosts, an art exhibition brought these spirits back from the dead.
St George’s Church was built in modern-day Czechia, or the Czech Republic, back in 1352, and stayed in use for centuries. During this time, it occasionally suffered damage or a fire, but the fatal blow was struck in 1968 when the ceiling collapsed in the middle of a funeral.
The roof caving in mid-service was understandably interpreted as a bad omen. People grew convinced the building was haunted, and in the absence of regular churchgoers, St George’s became exclusively known for another kind of visitor…
The longer this went on, the more people grew convinced the place was haunted and opted to leave it to the elements instead of going inside.
It means St George’s became a dilapidated church that has lain in disrepair for decades. Thanks to a young artist named Jakub Hadrava, it’s gained international attention and thousands of annual visitors, who come to see his inspired creations of souls from the other side.
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The project started over a decade ago now, when a local man called Petr Koukl wanted to raise the funds to repair, but wasn’t sure how. He enlisted the help of Hadrava, then only a student, who created the ghost installation as his thesis for art college. They were made through plaster models of real people, then covered with sheets, before finding their spot in the church’s pews.
Bringing the supernatural to life has seen a change in the church’s fortunes. It has provided people with a reason to visit, with proceeds going towards the eventual rebuilding of the roof.
“98 percent evaluate the exhibition as positive,” Koukl told Czech Radio. “It’s true that sometimes someone comes who is afraid to enter, but that’s only around fifteen or twenty people in the time I worked there. In short, there are some places where people with more sensitive souls are afraid to enter.”
Interested in ghosts? Check out the time when we met Joe Nickell, The Ghost Hunter Who Doesn’t Believe in Ghosts.
