St Catherine's Church in Woźniki

The tower of St Catherine's Church – square below, octagonal above, with an onion-shaped cupola – marks the centre of Woźniki, one of the oldest small towns in Upper Silesia. The church is built of rough limestone, and its walls have seen Lutherans, a great town fire and almost two decades of rebuilding.

History: a stone church on the site of a wooden one

The parish dates back to the 13th century, and the church is first mentioned in 1347 and 1490. As late as 1569 it was still wooden with a shingle roof. In 1607–1608 a masonry church was built on the site, reusing parts of the older structure. During the Reformation in the 16th century the church was used by Lutherans; according to tradition they added side chapels, one of which was to serve as the crypt of the Kamieniec family, owners of Woźniki.

Sources disagree on the date of the disaster: the church burned in either 1789 or 1798, when fire destroyed almost the whole town. Rebuilding began in 1811 and, according to some sources, lasted until 1829. Later alterations blurred some stylistic features – today the building combines Gothic origins with Renaissance and Baroque changes.

What to see

• The tower – in two stages, topped with an onion cupola; the walls are almost undecorated apart from stepped cornices.
• The heraldic cartouche – above the main entrance on the west front, with the founders' shields. Beneath it there was once a second cartouche, probably bearing an inscription or the building date.
• The interior – a gilded main altar in Baroque style and historic furnishings protected as part of the listed monument.
• The organ – built in 1908 by Schlag & Söhne of Świdnica; handwritten notes about repairs survive inside the organ case.

Did you know?

In 1902 the Silesian Sisters Servants of Mary settled in the parish and founded the St Philomena charitable house, caring for the sick and running a nursery. Next to the church stands the chapel of St John of Nepomuk, and a few dozen metres away on the market square is the monument to Józef Lompa, the Silesian teacher and writer who spent his last years in Woźniki.

Tripto tip

The church is right on the market square, so it is easy to combine with a stroll round the square and a visit to the wooden church of St Valentine in the cemetery about a kilometre south, where Lompa is buried. The interior is easiest to see around services. Allow 20–30 minutes for the church itself.