© Slovak Post, 2009 The Chapel of St. Margaret of Antioch is situated in the land registry of the village Kopčany (the county of Skalica), within the alluvial area of the river Morava, opposite to a destroyed Great Moravian hill fort “Valy” near Mikulčice. The research of such a unique monument, that had been considered to be a chapel from the 14th century till 1994, was initiated by a chronicler Vladimír Grigar inspired by signs of the church’s Great Moravian origin. The ground plan disposition proves that the chapel is of an archaic type of Christian sacral architecture, which can be referred to as a one-nave church with a square presbytery. Its masonry is vertically curved and consists of quarry sandstone set in lines. In terms of the appearance and measures, the chapel is identical with the Church of St. George in Kostoľany under Tríbeč. Moreover, it is a rare representative of Pre-Roman architecture of the 9th – 10th century that has been preserved intact in the Central Europe. Its present state of preservation is the result of several construction phases during which mostly entrance openings have been adjusted – the portal and windows from the 13th and 16th century. Original subtle window openings of the Pre-Romanesque type with a semicircular round arch and a triangle bind stone in the middle have been preserved in the northern wall of the church nave. A stone entrance hall used to be connected to the western part of the church in the past. It was discovered only during the archaeological research in 1994 which revealed a brick crypt in its interior. Thanks to another archaeological research in 2004, several tombs with Great Moravian inventory were uncovered, which confirmed its Pre-Romanesque origin. Among typical jewellery discovered in the tombs there were bronze gold-coated buttons and silver ear-rings with poppy granulation produced from the 2nd half of the 9th century till the middle of the 10th century. However, the relationship between the chapel and the central Great Moravian hill-fort in Valy near Mikulčice still remains unclear. It cannot be ruled out that the building used to belong to the eastern front part of the hill fort whose research has not yet been carried out. Martin Vančo