History
The church was erected in the years 1493-1496. During the Reformation it was in the hands of Evangelicals who changed the interior design. As part of the Counter-Reformation, the temple returned to Catholics. In the eighteenth and nineteenth, the interior was transformed. The present-day appearance we owe to the restaurants from 1976 and from the 90s of the twentieth century.
Architecture
The church was erected in a log construction with a tower with a pole construction. It consists of a nave and a three-side ended chancel, to which the sacristy adjoins from the north. A tower with inclined walls and with an overhang porch was added to the nave from the west. Above the nave and chancel there is a shared gable roof with a ridge turret. Inside, the nave was covered with a flat ceiling, while the chancel was covered with an apparent vault with decorative ribs. Inside, the walls are decorated with precious polychromes from 1596 and slightly younger, from 1665. They present, among others the fight of Saint George with a dragon.
Current state
The building is the oldest and most valuable wooden church in Slovakia. Together with a number of other wooden temples in the Slovak Carpathians in 2008, it was added on the UNESCO World Heritage List. Among the original equipment have survived the late-gothic triptych, a late gothic group of Crucifixion painted on the boards from the beginning of the 16th century and a gothic painting depicting St. Francis of Assisi, Christopher and Catherine of Siena from 1460-1470.
bibliography:
Website zabytkowekoscioly.net, Hervartov, kościół św. Franciszka z Asyżu.