Wooden Church of St Joseph in Międzygórze

The Stations of the Cross in this church were donated in the 18th century as votive offerings asking for rain, which had not fallen for three months. The wooden Church of St Joseph stands in the very centre of Międzygórze, above the road to the Wilczka waterfall, and is one of only four surviving wooden churches in the Kłodzko Land – the others are in Kamieńczyk, Nowa Bystrzyca and Zalesie.

History: from cemetery chapel to parish church

The church was built in 1740–1742 by local builders Friedrich Knietig of Wilkanów and Heinrich Ludwig of Pławnica, who drew on the region's masonry churches. It began as a cemetery chapel. The bell turret was renewed in 1790–1792, and in the second half of the 19th century the chancel ceiling was rebuilt and today's decorative interior created. In 1924 carpenter Ignatz Herfort probably rebuilt the nave ceiling and put on a new roof covered with slate.

The slate came from the only greywacke slate quarry in the Sudetes, near Jarnołtówek, in slabs of about one square metre. Until 2000 this was the only wooden church in the Sudetes roofed this way. In 2001 the slate was replaced with shingles, and the exterior was renovated in 2013. Unusually, the church is not oriented: its chancel does not face east, as in most old churches.

What to see

• The building – log-built, vertically boarded, without a tower, with an octagonal bell turret crowned by an onion dome and lantern.
• The Holy Family on the rood beam, by the Baroque sculptor Michael Ignaz Klahr.
• The high altar from the 1740s with a painting of St Joseph and the Christ Child set in a leaf-bouquet frame made by Hieronymus Richter.
• The coffered chancel ceiling with carved rosettes on a blue ground, and the whitewashed nave ceiling with a gold geometric band.
• The 1908 pulpit with painted Evangelists and tablets of the Ten Commandments.
• The surroundings – gravestones set into the stone wall around the church and a Baroque Crucifixion from 1781 by the entrance. In 2014 a White Garden was planted beside the church with plants traditionally grown in cemeteries.

Tripto tip

The church stands on the main road through the village, so you will pass it on the way to the Wilczka waterfall. It looks best from above, from the street over the embankment: you see the dark timber body, the turret and, behind, the stone tower of the former Protestant church of 1911. The interior is easiest to see around services. Allow 20–30 minutes.