St Anne's Church in Przechlewo

Seen from the tower end, St Anne's Church in Przechlewo looks like a village church of timber framing and wood; from the chancel end, like a red-brick neo-Gothic church. It is really two buildings grown into one: a half-timbered nave from 1720 and a brick transept and chancel added at the end of the 19th century. In 2020 the parish celebrated the church's 300th anniversary.

History: 300 years in two styles

The parish has a long history: as early as 1341 a Teutonic Order document mentions the idea of founding it, and a parish priest of Przechlewo is recorded in 1565. The present church was built in 1720 as a half-timbered, post-and-frame structure with a wooden tower rising above the nave. By the late 19th century it had become too small: work began on 25 June 1898, adding a brick neo-Gothic transept, an apsed chancel and a sacristy, which gave the church the shape of a Latin cross. In 1807 Napoleonic troops were quartered in Przechlewo, and from 1877 to 1881, during Bismarck's Kulturkampf against the Catholic Church, the parish had no priest. The church and its grounds were listed as a historic monument on 12 April 1954.

What to see

• The half-timbered walls of the older part and the wooden tower with its Baroque cupola.
• The painted ceiling from the first half of the 18th century – figurative scenes with plant ornament; the flat ceiling rests on four posts.
• The Baroque high altar from the first half of the 18th century, two Rococo side altars and a late Baroque pulpit.
• A carved font from around 1650 and a Renaissance tomb slab of the Prądzyński family; there is a crypt beneath the church.
• Stained glass by Theo Landmann from 1940 in the chancel windows, with scenes from the lives of St Anne and St Joachim.
• A Renaissance bell cast in 1545 – older than the church itself.

Tripto tip

The church is on Młyńska Street in the centre of Przechlewo. It is a working parish; according to its website, Sunday Masses are at 7:00, 9:00, 11:00 and 17:00, and weekday Mass at 18:00 – the easiest time to see the interior is just before or after a service. Allow 30–45 minutes for the ceiling, altars and windows. Walk all the way round the building, too: the clash of two eras is best seen from the chancel end, where the brick gable of the transept meets the wooden tower. Przechlewo has a second historic church as well, a former Protestant church taken over by the parish in 1957 and now dedicated to Our Lady of Częstochowa.