St John the Apostle Church in Harenda

The church in Harenda arrived in Zakopane by train. Built in 1710–1720 in Zakrzów near Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, it stood unused and decaying after a new church was built there, until in 1947–1948 it was dismantled, carried to the foot of the Tatras and reassembled next to the villa and mausoleum of the poet Jan Kasprowicz. The parish calls it the oldest wooden church in the Skalne Podhale highland region, and its interior is covered with figurative paintings full of local highlander touches.

History: a move to the mountains

The idea of building a church in Harenda emerged in the 1940s, proposed by the priests Jan Hyc and Marduła. Maria Kasprowicz, the poet's widow, donated the land, and her son-in-law Władysław Jarocki — painter, architect and former rector of the Jan Kazimierz University in Lviv — supervised the transfer and reconstruction of the church from Zakrzów. Local residents and the heritage authority supported the work. Moving and reassembling the building took several years, and it was consecrated on 6 August 1950.

At first the church was a chapel of ease of the Zakopane parish with no priest of its own; residents arranged for visiting priests to say Mass. In 1960 Bishop Karol Wojtyła — the future Pope John Paul II — appointed a permanent pastor, and in 1982 a separate parish was created. A belfry with three bells was added in 1983, and at the end of 2005 a pipe organ was installed in the choir loft.

What to see

• The soboty — a covered arcade running around the church, typical of old wooden churches in southern Poland — and the steep shingled roof with domed turrets.
• The wall paintings restored by Jarocki: 38 figures and 26 angels, with the Coronation of the Virgin on the chancel ceiling and St Cecilia with music-making angels above the choir.
• The Baroque high altar from Książ Wielki near Miechów, brought in to replace the lost original, with Jarocki's painting of the patron: St John on Patmos writing the last book of the Bible.
• Side altars with Jarocki's paintings: the "Harenda Madonna" and a Nativity in which the shepherds are local highlanders.
• The porch, with old highland religious folk art: paintings on glass, carved figures of the apostles and votive offerings.
• The organ with 762 pipes — the longest is 270 cm, the shortest just 5 mm.

Harenda and Kasprowicz

A few steps from the church stands the wooden Harenda villa, which Jan Kasprowicz, a leading poet of the Young Poland movement, bought in 1923 and where he died three years later. Since 1950 it has been a museum of the poet, run by the Association of Friends of Jan Kasprowicz's Work, with furniture, mementos, pastel portraits by Witkacy and a gallery of Jarocki's paintings. Nearby, among the trees, is the granite mausoleum of 1933, designed by Karol Stryjeński, where the poet is buried.

Tripto tip

The church (Harenda 14a) is on the Wooden Architecture Route of Małopolska and is an active parish: Mass is celebrated on Sundays and holidays at 8:00, 11:00 and 18:00, and on weekdays at 18:00. The interior is best seen just before or after a service, not during it. The parish feast falls on 27 December, St John's Day. Allow about 1.5 hours for the church, mausoleum and museum, and check the museum's opening hours before you go, as it is periodically renovated.