THE CHURCH IN KOPČANY IS ONE OF THE OLDEST CHURCHES IN CENTRAL EUROPE
The international consortium consisting of seven radiocarbon laboratories dated the church of st. Margaret of Antioch in Kopčany
An international consortium of radiocarbon laboratories from the USA (University of Arizona in Tucson; University of Georgia in Athens), Switzerland (ETH in Zurich), Austria (University of Vienna), the Czech Republic (Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague), Hungary (Institute for Nuclear Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Debrecen), and the Department of Nuclear Physics and Biophysics of the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Informatics of the Comenius University, dealt with determining the age of the Church of St. Margaret of Antioch in Kopčany. Since the Church was severely damaged several times during its long history and therefore often rebuilt, its age was not exactly known. During the recent reconstruction of the Church there was a chance to search for samples which could be used for radiocarbon dating. Altogether 13 samples (wood, charcoal, mortar and plaster) were collected from the walls of the Church and analyzed using highly sensitive accelerator mass spectrometry. This technique enables us to analyze radiocarbon (14C) even in sub-milligram samples of carbon, which was not possible before using radiometric methods.
The 14C results obtained from the different laboratories, as well as between the different sample types, have been in very good agreement. Resulting the 14C calibrated age of the Church, based on dating a single piece of a wooden levelling rod (diameter of 2 cm) is 774–884 AD (95.4% confidence level), which is in very good agreement with Bayesian modeling result based on dating of wood, charcoal and mortar samples (788–884 AD, 95.4% confidence level). The probability distribution from OxCal calibration shows that 79% of the probability distribution lies in the period before 863 AD, implying that the Church could have been constructed before the arrival of Constantine (St. Cyril) and St. Methodius to Great Moravia. If we take as the terminus post quem the documented date of consecration of the Church in Nitra (828 AD), as a natural assumption that the first church was built in the centre of the Nitra Principality, Bayesian modeling determines the age of the Church in the range of 837–884 AD (95.4% confidence level). Although the 14C results were obtained with very high precision (± 10 years), the specific plateau shape of the calibration curve in the period of interest (as seen in the figure) has caused a wide range of calibrated age.
The radiocarbon-dated Church of St. Margaret of Antioch in Kopčany therefore represents, together with the St. George’s Rotunda in Nitrianska Blatnica (dated to the same time interval; Povinec et al., Radiocarbon 63 (2021) 953–976), probably the oldest standing Christian churches in Central Europe east of Salzburg.
P. P. Povinec, I. Kontuľ, A. Cherkinsky, I. Hajdas, Y. Gu, A. J. T. Jull, T. Lupták, M. Molnár, P. Steier, I. Svetlik: Radiocarbon dating of the Church of St. Margaret of Antioch in Kopčany (Slovakia): International consortium results. Radiocarbon 67 (2025) 135-154.