Mass - June to Sept.        every Sunday at 16:30     

Mass - Oct. to May         last Sunday of the month at 15:30  

Tourists and other visitors can visit the church every half hour before the beginning of Mass. At other times, groups can arrange for the church to be opened by Mr. Lada, who has a ceramics workshop at the rectory. Telephone 048/282 03 31.

The wooden Church of Saint Christopher is a unique monument with a rich history. The church stands in the centre of the cemetery, on a hill on the bank of the Rokytka River, and was built during the period of 1683 - 1684 , following which, an older wooden church on the facing hillside was removed. The builder of this early baroque shrine was a simple carpenter, Michal Schobel from Zibridice, whose name was later included in the memorial list. It is the single preserved log building with a slate roof in our county. The walls and ceiling of this church are decorated with 15 paintings from the life of Christ. In the presbytery there are the remains of some original early baroque paintings. The effect of the interior space is enlarged by airy rococo paintings. A walled vestry was erected behind the altar space in 1781 based on a proposal by J. Kunze from Liberec.[1]

The path leading to the church passes over a stream along a vaulted bridge of hammer faced stone, with a statue of Saint John curving around a sandstone statuette of St. Wenceslas from 1763. The statuette bears the inscription: "S.WENCESLAY SAMBT DEINER H. GROSS MUTTER LUDEMILLA BITT FUR UNS " (Saint Wenceslas together with your holy grandmother Ludmila, pray for us). The rectory is a single floored building with a mansard roof, constructed in 1768.[2] One enters the cemetery through a vaulted gate. To the right is the mortuary and belfry, with a shingled roof. In 1754, it was renovated and upgraded with three bells and a death-bell. The last repairs were made during the summer of 2000, when the belfry received a new coat.

The Mortuary and Dance of Death (Totentanz) [1]

An interesting feature of the cemetery was the mortuary, built against the wall. Inside was a small altar with a picture of the dying Saviour with John and Mary, painted on wood. On the lower edge was the inscription: "Father, in your hands I lay my soul". From 1846 there stood before the pillars of the altar a wooden carved scene overlayed with painted flowers. Angels on the scene carry a folk maxim about the vanities of the world. On the cornice there was small, late baroque cartouche with a scene of the Resurrection. The altar originated from the end of the 17th century and the scenes are folk works. Ancient paintings were discovered beneath the plaster, dating to the period of the church's construction.

The rarest, however, was the cycle of eight painted plaques, hung on the walls of the mortuary and bearing the title of "Tanec Smrti" (Dance of Death). This series dates most likely from the middle of the 16th century. At that time, it was customary to decorate mortuary walls with scenes depicting the end of our earthly life,  to remind all mortals of the transient nature of their own lives. The mortuary in Christopher's Valley was probably not the first place where these eight plaques hung. This has been inferred by an inscription on one of the plaques, saying that it was donated by Johann Richter, a wealthy townsman from Budysín (Bautzen), where the plaques may have originally hung. The fact that it had been restored earlier lends support to this theory.

Every plaque bears the image of omnipresent Death. One, for example, shows a shoemaker repairing a boot. Behind him stands Death, saying: "Leave the boot, it's the end of work, your short life has come to its conclusion!". The shoemaker in his humility, replies: "Today I did not think on my Faith,that I take my last boot at work!".

Another plaque depicts a quiet corner of a forest with picturesque trails, where a woodcutter has put down his saw and axe and is leaning on a tree. He is resting. Deer are quietly grazing, and they don't notice the presence of Death at all. It doesn't affect them. Death whispers to the woodcutter: "Today you'll cut no wood, for Death is right behind you".

In other pictures, there are a rich man, a wagon driver carrying wood, a rider, whom Death sits with, a man in period costume, a dead body draped in cloth, being buried by two weeping women in a palace courtyard, a soldier in a white uniform with blue rank bafges and Death in the background. Every picture is accompanied by a folk verse of some kind. It was then, an ancient heritage of this Dance of Death which was restored in the 1960s by the painter B. Knytl and is today stored in the depository of the North Bohemian Museum. In 2001, the plaques were displayed in the exhibition "Celebration of Baroque Bohemia" at the Kinsky Palace in Prague.

Sources:

[3] I.Taller Ctení kratochvilné o starém Liberci

[2] F. Vydra BULLETIN Spolecnosti prátel historie mesta Chrastavy c. 82 / duben 2001

[3] Syrowatka Frühlingserlebnis in Christofsgrund

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