The church has a secret window Bashny.Net

The hole in the wall of the church called hagioskop. In the Middle Ages such slots intended for people entering the church which was banned. Most often, for lepers, hence the second name - "window lepers." Hagioskop located so that a person looking through it, I saw the altar, and then attended the Mass. During the service, the priest, by attaching the end of the rod ashen wafer could Communion accident, thrusting it through the hole in the wall.





Sometimes hagioskop used to transfer food to believers dared to voluntary confinement in the walls of the church. In the fifteenth century, two monks, wanting to be canonized, sealed themselves in the church of St. John in Riga, leaving only a small hole through which food was prepared by the parishioners.





A similar thing happened in Britain with Christine Carpenter. In 1329, she, wanting to understand the humility and protect innocence, appealed to the bishop asking her wall up in the walls of the church of St. James. Bishop agreed, and she spent three years in captivity, watching the Mass through the small window. In 1332 she was rescued from captivity, but soon reverted back to his shelter, where she spent the rest of his life.

Source: www.dirty.ru

via factroom.ru