St Michael the Archangel Church, Uzarzewo

In 2001, while the tower of Uzarzewo church was being repaired, workers found a sealed bottle inside the copper ball beneath the cross: a letter to future generations, written on 12 August 1868 by the village schoolteacher. That is not this church's only surprise – its half-timbered walls also hide a mural that was uncovered only around the turn of the 21st century. The church stands on a low rise in the Cybina valley, in Swarzędz municipality east of Poznań, on the Wooden Churches Trail around Puszcza Zielonka forest.

History: from a royal foundation to half-timbering

The parish was probably founded as early as the 12th century, and the first wooden church is said to have been a royal foundation; the earliest written mentions of the church date from the 14th century. In 1749 the village owner Felicjan Niepruszewski pulled down the old church and built a new one with a timber frame filled with brick and clay – the half-timbered technique known in Polish as szachulec. In 1869, funded by Antonina Lipska, a wooden Gothic Revival tower was added: square below, octagonal above, topped with a slender spire. In 1900 the Żychliński family, then lords of Uzarzewo, paid for a brick sacristy and a Neo-Baroque chapel with a burial crypt.

The letter of 1868

Besides the letter, the ball on the tower held a box with six coins – one from 1597, the rest from the 19th century – plus newspapers and magazines. The writer, teacher Franciszek Polczyński, described the tower's founders and the church's history, and told posterity that the Prussian authorities were trying hard to Germanise the local people, adding his hope that his readers would be living in a free Poland. Everything went back into the ball together with a new letter dated 11 November 2001. Earlier, before 1994, a walled-up mid-18th-century crypt had been found under the floor.

What to see

• The scarlet canopy painted on the chancel walls – an 18th-century trompe-l'oeil uncovered during conservation in 1996–2004. The ceiling cuts across it, showing that the church was once taller. The parish notes its likeness to murals found in Poznań's Parish Church.
• The "Golgotha" high altar, originally Baroque and later Gothic Revival, and two Baroque side altars from the mid-18th century, dedicated to the Sacred Heart of the Crucified Jesus and St Teresa of Ávila.
• A 17th-century crucifix and an early medieval stone stoup that served as the font until 1895.
• A fake window painted above the sacristy door and the Neo-Renaissance altar in the Żychliński chapel.
• The churchyard with tombs of the Brodowski (1930), Waligórski and Frąckowiak (1935) families designed by the Poznań architect Marian Andrzejewski, and "The Pilgrim", a copy of a sculpture by Władysław Marcinkowski.

Next door is a late Neoclassical presbytery from the mid-19th century.

Tripto tip

The church belongs to the Biskupice-Uzarzewo parish. Mass in Uzarzewo is held on Sundays and holy days at 9:30; weekday Masses are only in Biskupice (as of October 2026) – Sunday morning is the surest chance to see inside. On other days call the parish in advance: tel. +48 509 789 816. Allow 20–30 minutes. The village also has a natural history and hunting museum, so Uzarzewo makes an easy short trip from Poznań.