The uniqueness of this ensemble of wooden churches - There are at least 4 other similar WHS! - can be found in the broad variety of styles given by co-existence of 3 faiths, Protestant, Roman-catholic, and Greek-catholic, in small area of Slovak Carpathians, and in the fact that all of them are still in active use of their communities.

(Greek-Catholics religion is unusual combination of Catholics and Orthodox Church that still exists in eastern Slovakia with cathedral located in Prešov. As there is quite large minority of Rurthenians in Prague, they use originally roman-catholic church of S Kliment close to the Charles Bridge in Prague for purposes of their faith).

This is one of on my favorite sites in Slovakia. I liked especially wooden churches of Eastern part of the country built for Greek-Catholics. There are plenty of them, ca. 30-40, in north-east corner of Slovakia close to Polish borders, and I visited many of them, but not all of them yet, during my trips to beech forests of eastern Carpathians. I was lucky in several cases, and had opportunity to visit also their interior. Only 3 Greek-Catholic tserkvas were selected according strict rules of Slovak state party.

I visited 6 churches from 8 in total:

Roman Catholic churches of (1) Tvrdošín and (2) Hervartov that were interesting for me to visit but I found them not such unusual for me as I know similar churches from Czechia and Poland. In general, they adopted and expressed the wide-spread gothic and baroque style in wood. Such churches have two parts: prolonged nave with tower and prebitery with polygonal or square apsida.

In contrast, Protestant churches of (3) Kežmarok and (4) Hronsek were surprising for me due to their monumentality and inner space, and I enjoyed these churches because I have never visited protestant wooden church before. It was also striking and impressive for me to see that Protestant community constructed such beautiful buildings, which are still in use for Protestant minority in Slovakia. However, their structure is also derived from universal baroque style: They have no tower, and have shape of a latin-cross central.

Greek Catholic churches of (5) Bodružal and (6) Ladomírová (PHOTO) are highlight of this series for me, and it is almost unbelievable that small communities in remote and very poor parts of Slovakia were able to express their skills in these extremely monumental though small structures. The most beautiful church from the WHS series is that one Bodružal, in my opinion. It is located in tranquil village surrounded by forested hills. The church consists of three parts with three continually ascending towers - the highest is in the western part. This is typical example of LEMKOV type of church. In contrast, wooden orthodox tserkvas in Poland and Ukraine (WHS) are usually of BOJKO type, where the middle tower is the highest. It means that the shape of tserkvas is not derived from universal styles, however, interior is decorated by baroque elements.

It is a pity that some of churches in the region of east Slovakia were left abandoned, or in the worst case that communities sold them to museums, some of them even to Czechia (one example can be found in Kinský garden in Prague!). However, the situation was even tougher on Polish side of Carpathians due to after-WWII turbulences, and many of wooden churches were destroyed, or if they survived they are not in use because of vanishing of orthodox communities in roman-catholic Poland.