A 14th-century church that has been abandoned for 50 years is now filled with 'ghosts.' Look inside.
- In the tiny Czech town of Lukova, there is a church that has stood for hundreds of years.
- It was abandoned in 1968, when the roof fell through during a funeral.
In the town of Luková in the Czech Republic sits St. George's Church, but it's not your typical place of worship.
In 2012, an artist installed dozens of statues of ghostlike figures that still haunt the place to this day.
Jakub Hadrava placed his statues there as part of his senior thesis and, in the process, he helped revitalize the once-abandoned church and nearby area. Tourists came from across the world and donated money to help restore the church's crumbling roof — according to its caretaker, by 2018, donations totaled $26,000 — and it has undergone other improvements, such as getting new clock faces on its tower.
The church is still open to visitors on Saturdays from March to October. If you can't make your way to the Czech Republic, here's what it looks like inside St. George.
St. George's church, which was built in the 14th century, sits atop a hill in the Czech village of Luková.
Luková is a small town 2 1/2 hours outside Prague. In 2021, it had a population of 735, according to the census. St. George's was consecrated in 1352, according to Atlas Obscura.
The church was abandoned in 1968 after the roof collapsed during a funeral.
This contributed to locals believing the building was haunted or even cursed. The congregation began holding mass outside.
It was left to rot until the community decided to try to save it. However, no one could come up with the money.
The town of under 800 people did not have the resources to refurbish a historic church. But in 2012, a local artist had an idea.
Playing off its haunted history, local artist Jakub Hadrava created 30 life-size "ghosts" to live inside the church.
Hadrava used his fellow classmates as models, covering them in sheets and creating plaster casts for the eerie effect.
The eerie white figures sit solemnly in the pews.
At first glance, they could be congregants in shawls.
Other figures congregate near the altar and stand at the doorways.
Some stand by doorways, as if to beckon visitors inside.
The statues represent the Sudeten Germans, or German Bohemians, an ethnic group that used to live in the area.
The Sudeten Germans were ethnic Germans expelled from the Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia) after World War II. There were believed to be as many as 3 million Sudeten Germans in the Czech Republic, and once expelled, they moved to Germany and Austria.
Visitors from across the world have come to see the ghosts of St. George's church.
The church's popularity soared in 2013 when a stylized video was uploaded to YouTube. It has over 287,000 views.
Tourists have donated thousands of dollars to help repair the church's roof.
The church's caretaker, Petr Koukl, told Lonely Planet in September 2018 that tourists had raised more than 600,000 koruna, or almost $26,000, for renovations.
While most visitors are excited to see the ghosts, "we had two or three visitors that refused to enter," said caretaker Petr Koukl.
We can see why.
"They peeked through the door, but didn't enter because they didn't feel well about it," he said.
Messing around with ghostly statues inside an abandoned church does sound like the beginning of a horror movie.
Think you're brave enough to meet the ghosts of St. George's?
The church is open to visitors on Saturdays from March to October, according to its website. If you visit on an off day, you'll have to settle for peeking in through the windows.
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