Temple of Saint Michael Archangel, Greek Catholic wooden church in Ladomirová, Svidník district, Slovakia
The Temple of Saint Michael Archangel is a Greek Catholic log-built church of 1742 in Ladomirová, assembled without a single nail. Three square spaces follow the Lemko plan, with a widened central nave and a presbytery under wooden domes; the exterior is clad in vertical spruce boards with battens. The stepped shingle roof rises to an eight-sided dome and is topped by shingle "makovičky" with forged iron crosses.
An earlier church is believed to have stood on this site around 1600; the present wooden church was built in 1742 without a single nail. During World War II the right side of the iconostasis was damaged and restored in 1946, when the wall between nave and narthex was also sawn through. A lime tree felled in a 1957 storm damaged the church again. It became a national cultural monument in 1968 and joined the UNESCO list on 8 July 2008.
The church follows the Lemko layout brought by Carpathian-Rusyn settlers whose eastern tradition reached almost to the Poprad river. Its five-tier iconostasis from the mid-18th century holds icons of Saint Nicholas, the Hodigitria Mother of God, Christ the Teacher and the Archangel Michael, with the Last Supper at the centre of the second tier and the Pantocrator among the apostles above.
The church stands in the village of Ladomirová in the Svidník district, with a wooden column-frame bell tower in the grounds on its south side, sheathed outside in vertical spruce boards. A surviving section of the palánok, a timber palisade with a shingled roof, and an entrance gate with a low shingled pyramid roof stand at the front of the fenced area. The bell tower was damaged when a linden tree fell and has been restored to its original form.
The church was built without a single nail. During World War II the right side of the iconostasis was damaged and restored in 1946; in 1957 a linden tree felled by a storm damaged the church again, and the bell tower was later rebuilt to its original form.
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