Landmarks

St. Martin’s Church in Cieszowa

The wooden St. Martin’s Church in Cieszowa, built in 1751 in the Lubliniec region, forms part of the Wooden Architecture Trail of the Silesian voivodeship. It is an east-facing log structure with a post-framed tower crowned by an octagonal spire and lantern, ringed by open soboty — the historic covered galleries once sheltering refugees and pilgrims.

A church, a synagogue, one builder

The site has an older history than the building suggests: a chapel of St. Martin was mentioned in 1679, reportedly dating back to the 13th century, and a Protestant wooden church stood here from 1598. The most surprising fact is that the builder of the 1751 church also erected the synagogue in Cieszowa at the same time — a testimony to a Silesian village where Catholic and Jewish communities lived side by side for centuries.

Interior and Scheffler’s organ

The presbytery closes on three sides, and the nave is flanked by a sacristy with a patrons’ box. The main altar is neo-Gothic, with a painting of St. Martin, while the side altars of the 18th century are Baroque. On the music gallery, supported on richly carved posts, stand an organ built in 1770 by Gottfried Wilhelm Scheffler, enlarged in 1869 by Anton Czopka from Olesno. Beneath the nave lies a crypt where the remains of the village’s owners rested until 1960.

In practice

Cieszowa lies in Lubliniec county, on the road between Koszęcin and Lubliniec, so the church is easy to include in a tour of the region. The interior can be visited outside mass times; nearby stand further wooden churches of the trail, among others in Kochanowice and Pawłówko.