St Brice's Pilgrimage Church in Bryksy

In the fields outside Gościęcin, next to a spring long believed to cure eye ailments, stands the wooden pilgrimage church of St Brice, built in 1661. Locals simply call the area with the church, the former hermitage and the chapels Bryksy. It is one of the most unusual pilgrimage sites in the Opole region: a patron saint whose cult probably came here all the way from Flanders, and a cross-shaped plan you rarely see.

A spring, a chapel and a saint from Tours

The first record of a chapel of St Brice in the fields near Gościęcin dates from 1594 – even then there was a spring beside it whose water was said to work miracles. It is not known for certain how the cult of the bishop of Tours, St Martin's successor, reached this area; it is thought to have been brought by Flemish settlers in the 13th century. After the Thirty Years' War so many pilgrims came that a larger church was needed.

On 11 June 1660 the Wrocław cathedral chapter granted permission to Marcin Wolff, a master of liberal arts and philosophy who owned the free village headship in Gościęcin. In his request he wrote that people had come to the spring "since time immemorial" and been healed, especially of eye diseases. The founders, Marcin and Marta Wolff, built the wooden church at their own expense; it was completed in 1661 and consecrated by Karl Franz Neander, auxiliary bishop of Wrocław. The church was renovated in 1880.

What to see

• The cross-shaped plan with three-sided ends to each arm – the western arm, which holds the nave, is longer than the others. Walk around the church to appreciate this rare layout.
• The log construction on a stone and brick base, walls and roofs clad in wooden shingles, and an octagonal bell turret with an onion dome and lantern.
• Inside: mock barrel vaults, a Baroque crucifix on the rood beam, a 17th-century painting of the Virgin and Child on the high altar and a Baroque marble tombstone.
• Two paintings from 1896 on the side altars – St Brice and the Baptism of Christ in the Jordan – and a music gallery resting on four posts.

Around the church you will find St Brice's well, a former hermitage dating from before 1870 (now a hostel), a neo-Romanesque chapel from 1870, a chapel from 1916 dedicated to those killed in the First World War, and a grotto from 1982. The spring's healing powers belong to tradition, not to proven medicine.

Tripto tip

The church belongs to the parish of the Assumption in Gościęcin (ul. Szkolna 4) and has no fixed opening hours – the easiest way to see the interior is during a service. The liveliest days are the church fairs for the Nativity of St John the Baptist and the Nativity of the Virgin Mary, held on the Sundays nearest 24 June and 8 September; in summer Sunday Masses are celebrated at the grotto. Check the current schedule with the parish. Bryksy lies on the road from Gościęcin to Kózki, in the Pawłowiczki district; 30–45 minutes is enough for the site itself, and the surroundings are good for a quiet walk or bike ride.