Church repaired

THE VIHORLAT Museum in the eastern-Slovak town of Humenné completed the reconstruction of the wooden church, which dominates its open-air museum, at the end of December. The damaged roof was replaced with new shingles.

The small church of St Michael Archangel, built in 1764, originally stood in the eastern-most municipality of Slovakia, Nová Sedlica. However, its poor condition required the construction of a new local church in the second half of the 20th century. Later, in the 1970s, the wooden church was saved when it was relocated to the premises of the open-air museum in Humenné. Currently, it is the open-air museum’s most important structure and the biggest exhibited item in the Vihorlat Museum.

“The necessity to repair the church roof resulted from the course of time, the impact of weather and parasitic mosses and lichens,” Vihorlat Museum ethnographer Jozef Fundák told the TASR newswire.

“In 2012, we bought the material needed and in 2013 we started the repair itself, within a project supported financially by the Culture Ministry,” he said.

He added that roofers from Moravia began repairing the roof in July 2013, which required about 25,000 shingles to cover the 450 square-metre space. Work was also done on the church’s highest tower, which stands 18 metres tall. A damaged beam and part of the original framework were also replaced.