The temple is part of a unique urban complex on an elevated site in the centre of the village. In addition to the temple, it consists of a separate bell tower, an adjacent cemetery and a wooden enclosure with a shingle roof and an entrance gate, which is covered by a conical roof with a poppy. The church itself is a prototype of the so-called Lemko-type church. It dates back to 1658 and is one of the oldest wooden sacral buildings of the Byzantine rite in Slovakia. The church has three towers. The construction is log in the shape of three squares arranged on one axis from east to west, the exterior is clad with vertically laid planks. The log is also used in the construction of the false, as if transverse stepped vaults (truncated ihlans) in the sanctuary and nave. The arrangement of the different parts of the church symbolises the Holy Trinity.
The roof is shingled. The tent roof over the sanctuary and nave is finished with short square structures on which conical bodies are anchored. Baroque onion turrets are fixed to them, terminating in small shingled conical extensions on which wrought-iron crosses are mounted.
The towers increase gradually from the small eastern one above the sanctuary (presbytery) through the middle part, the nave (which is the largest and has a log open dome) up to the western highest, prismatic tower (above the narthex - the so-called babincom), which is without conical structures and houses the bells.
The church's timbered crossbeams are laid on a stone foundation (plinth), the greatest height of which is below the sanctuary and is about 35-40 cm high. In the past, it was sandstone stones that formed its so-called foundation, without any binder (until the end of the 20th century). Today, the gaps between the stones are filled with a concrete mixture. The floor inside the church has a gravel-sand base, on which oak timbers are laid and on top of them are nailed worked, rounded boards.
At the beginning of the First World War, the smallest and the largest bell were used for military purposes. The bells were replaced by the inhabitants of the village only in the second half of the 1920s. The largest bell was made by the local forester Michal Zelizňák, working in the service of the forest owner, and the smallest bell was provided by the citizens of the village through a public collection. The oldest bell has the year 1759 on the outer wall of the casting, which means the year of its construction.
The Baroque interior decoration of the interior of the nave on the north side is complemented by wall paintings on wood from the 1890s depicting scenes from the Bible - the Apocalypse (Last Judgement) and the Crucifixion. From the same period comes the iconostasis with a rococo form, on which there are three rows of icons.
The exterior appearance of the church is influenced by Byzantine sacral art. In the interior, the iconostasis and the altar are characteristic of the Byzantine rite, but some paintings and icons also testify to the influence of the Latin rite.
The area of the church is surrounded by a log enclosure - (a bunkhouse with a shingle roof), which was restored in 2008. The entrance to the church is through a wooden bell tower, which has a conical roof and dates from the 19th century.
Source: www.drevenchramy.sk
Photos: Henryk Bielamowicz
