Description of the attraction
On the Slovak National Uprising Square (SNP Square) there is an inconspicuous glass booth, which tourists consider to be a stop or a descent into a passage, so they pass by indifferently. Even some locals do not know what is hidden under the glass dome. It was installed in 1995, when archaeologists discovered, right in the center of the Old Town of Bratislava, the remains of the chapel of St. James - the oldest sacred building in the Slovak capital. And with her was found an untouched warehouse of human bones, the so-called ossuary.
The presence of the ossuary at the ancient church is explained very simply: the chapel was built in 1436 at the city cemetery, which was located outside Bratislava. Next to the chapel, there was another temple that has not survived to our time - the Church of St. Lawrence. Now only a layer of cobblestones on the pavement reminds of its existence, differing in color from the rest of the stones of the road surface.
The original chapel of St. James was erected in the Romanesque style and then reconstructed in the Gothic manner. In addition to the ruins of this most recent temple, the foundations and fragments of the rotunda, which were erected in 1100, have been discovered. Subsequently, an ossuary was built in its place, belonging to the Church of St. Lawrence. The chapel of St. James appeared in the 15th century just on the foundation of this ossuary.
Both the chapel of St. James and the temple of St. Lawrence were destroyed by order of the city authorities during the siege of Bratislava by the Turkish army. This happened in 1529.
Currently, the ruins of the chapel of St. James are considered a branch of the local city museum. The temple and ossuary are open to the public only twice a year. You have to make an appointment for these excursions in advance, because there are a lot of people who want to see the underground chapel. The management of the museum in order to preserve the integrity of the Gothic shrine has limited the number of visitors: the chapel can be seen by no more than 900 people a year.
