Wooden Church of St Martin in Cieszowa

In the mid-18th century two wooden places of worship went up in Cieszowa – a church and a synagogue – and, according to tradition, both were built by the same carpenter. The synagogue is gone, but the wooden Church of St Martin from 1751 survives and is now part of the Wooden Architecture Route of the Silesian Voivodeship. It stands in a village a few kilometres north of Koszęcin, within the "Lasy nad Górną Liswartą" Landscape Park.

History: from Protestant chapel to Catholic church

The first church here probably dates back to the Middle Ages, and 16th-century documents mention a graveyard being laid out beside it. At the end of the 16th century the Cieszowski family funded a modest Protestant church, built in 1598. During the Counter-Reformation it was taken over by Catholics, and in 1679 a chapel of St Martin is recorded here. The present church was built in 1751. The village belonged in turn to families including the Cieszowskis, the Strachwitzes, the Larisches, the Sobeks and the Princes of Hohenlohe.

What to see

• The post-built tower, square in plan, with a dome, lantern and onion-shaped cupola; a smaller cupola tops the roof turret over the nave.
• The soboty – roofed walkways along the nave walls that protected the walls from rain and gave shelter to churchgoers.
• The Neo-Gothic high altar with a painting of St Martin, and Baroque side altars from the 18th century.
• The music gallery resting on four ornately fretworked posts.
• The organ by Gottfried Wilhelm Scheffler from 1770, enlarged in 1869 by Anton Czopka of Olesno.
• The patron's box above the sacristy, from which the village owners followed the services.

Interesting facts

Beneath the nave lies a crypt where the remains of the village owners rested until 1960. At the end of the 18th century more than 100 Jews may have lived in the village, and their wooden synagogue was reportedly so richly furnished that there were plans to move it to Dresden. That never happened: in 1908 the building was bought by the parish priest of Sadów, Fr Karol Urban, and in 1911 the synagogue was dismantled. A statue of St Urban now stands on its site.

Tripto tip

The church stands at ul. Szkolna 27, surrounded by its graveyard. Allow 20–30 minutes to walk around it and look inside; the interior is easiest to see around Mass times. A trail leads from the church to the kirkut – the Jewish cemetery on a wooded rise outside the village, first mentioned at the end of the 17th century. About 60 matzevot (gravestones) from the 18th and 19th centuries survive there, with inscriptions in Hebrew and German. The trees in the cemetery were badly damaged by a tornado on 15 August 2008.