Icy St. Peter's Basilica in Slovakia draws visitors closer to heavens

HREBIENOK, Slovakia - A young nun breathes deeply as she peers up at a statue of an angel bathed in softly colored light streaming through a church, and as she exhales, you can see her breath.

Instead of wood or bricks and mortar, this chilly house of worship perched among the snowy peaks of Slovakia's High Tatra Mountains has been built from massive crystal-clear blocks of ice.

At 1,285 meters above sea level, the ice replica of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome is higher than any of Slovakia's 4,158 churches, more than half of them Roman Catholic.