St. Michael Chapel, Gothic chapel in Old Town Košice, Slovakia
St. Michael Chapel is a Gothic church on Hlavná street in the Old Town of Košice, Slovakia. It has pointed windows with two-light tracery, stepped buttresses along the outer walls, and a four-sided tower on the western end that is built into the main body of the structure.
The chapel was built between 1380 and 1400 as a cemetery structure, with a mortuary on the upper level and an ossuary below for storing human remains. It was restored in 2006 and converted into an active church.
The chapel was once the place of worship for Slovak-speaking residents of the city, while the nearby Cathedral of Saint Elisabeth served mainly German and Hungarian communities. This division shaped how different groups shared the religious space of the Old Town for generations.
The chapel sits on Hlavná street in the center of the Old Town and is easy to reach on foot from most points in the area. Since it is an active place of worship, access may vary by day, and visitors are expected to be quiet inside.
Above the vestry door inside the chapel hangs one of the oldest surviving municipal coats of arms in Europe, dating from 1369. This coat of arms is older than the chapel itself, which means it was brought in from elsewhere at some point.
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