Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Nakło Śląskie

The brick church in Nakło Śląskie looks as if someone had combined a Romanesque Revival church with a Byzantine dome. It was founded by Count Lazarus IV Henckel von Donnersmarck, who paid about 90% of the building costs and had a family mausoleum and an orphanage for miners' children built next to it. Its tower now holds bells that came in 2017 from a closed Protestant church in Wuppertal, Germany.

History: a church for a mining village

Until the end of the 19th century, Catholics from Nakło went to services in Żyglin. As the village grew, Lazarus IV, owner of the local estate who lived in the nearby palace, launched the building of a church of its own in 1892. The foundation stone was laid on 18 August 1892 to a design by Hugo Heer, an architect from Bytom working in Vienna. Designed for about 1,500 worshippers, the church was consecrated on 24 October 1894 by Cardinal Georg von Kopp, Bishop of Wrocław, and Fr Rudolf Anderko became its first parish priest.

Architecture: Romanesque Revival with a Byzantine accent

The church is east-facing, built of brick and has three aisles, but its core is an octagon set within a square, crowned by an octagonal dome. On the west side two towers flank the main entrance, and the chancel has a three-sided end. The façades are decorated with brick friezes and arcading typical of late 19th-century historicism. The interior centres on the space beneath the dome, although the furnishings were changed during post-war renovations.

What to look for

• The 1894 organ built by the Świdnica firm Schlag & Söhne – 10 stops, two manuals, overhauled in 2005.
• The Wuppertal bells – two of the three original bells were requisitioned during the Second World War. In 2017 the parish received two bells cast in 1995 from the closed St Michael's Church in Elberfeld; they first rang out at Easter.
• The Donnersmarck Mausoleum of 1889 on the north side of the church, built on a Greek-cross plan. Lazarus IV (1835–1914) and his wife Maria are among those buried here, and epitaphs commemorate family members who died outside Poland after 1945.
• The former St Lazarus Home of 1899 – an orphanage for children of miners from the Donnersmarck mines, run by the Borromean Sisters; today a care home.

Tripto tip

The church is at ul. Główna 3 in Nakło Śląskie (Świerklaniec municipality, Tarnowskie Góry county) and is an active parish church, so the interior is easiest to see before or after Mass. Allow 30–45 minutes for the church and the mausoleum from outside. About 200 m away stands the neo-Gothic Donnersmarck palace, now a cultural centre with exhibitions – together they make a neat outing in the family's footsteps. A few kilometres away, in the park at Świerklaniec, you can see a second Donnersmarck mausoleum with a small church from 1895–1897.