Church of the Beheading of St John the Baptist in Baranów Sandomierski

The Church of the Beheading of St John the Baptist on Kościuszki Street in Baranów Sandomierski is a late-Renaissance building from 1604–1607, built by the Leszczyński family – the same family that raised Baranów's famous castle. For half a century it served Calvinists, when Baranów was one of the main centres of Calvinism in Lesser Poland. The interior is adorned with stucco vaults, a Baroque font and Art Nouveau paintwork with roots in Lviv.

History: from wooden parish church to Calvinist meeting house

According to Jan Długosz's "Liber beneficiorum", a wooden church stood in Baranów by about 1440. In 1568 the town was bought by Rafał Leszczyński, and in 1569 the Leszczyńskis founded a Calvinist church here; around 1600 a school and library operated alongside it. The present brick church was founded by Andrzej Leszczyński and completed by his son Rafał in 1604–1607, on the site of the earlier wooden one. In 1604 Baranów hosted a Protestant synod of Calvinists and Bohemian Brethren, and in the 1640s the local pastor Tomasz Węgierski was superintendent general of the Lesser Poland Unity.

The Calvinist chapter ended in the mid-17th century – parish histories state that the church, presbytery and library were taken from the Protestants in 1655, after Samuel Leszczyński converted to Catholicism. In 1748 the church was extended and a bell turret added, and a thorough renovation in 1934 brought new wall paintings.

What to see

• Barrel vaults with lunettes in the chancel and nave, covered with a network of decorative stucco ribs.
• A Baroque stone font from 1669 right by the portal.
• A copy of Raphael's "Holy Family" and 19th-century paintings of the Beheading of St John the Baptist and of St Nicholas.
• Late-Baroque sculptures of St Casimir and St Kinga.
• Art Nouveau paintwork from 1934 with decorative and figural motifs, by a group of painters from Lviv.
• Three bells – from 1608 (donated by Rafał Leszczyński), 1696 and 1946; the last was funded by the Polish community in Kassel.

The building has a single nave with a narrower, buttressed chancel to the east and a tall square tower above the west entrance, divided into storeys by cornices. The cupolas of the tower and bell turret are Baroque, and the whole is covered by gabled roofs.

Tripto tips

• Visiting: this is a working parish church – the interior is easiest to see before or after services.
• Combine with the castle: the church is a few minutes' walk from the market square and the Leszczyński castle, built in 1591–1606 to a design attributed to Santi Gucci.
• Outside: on the west side of the church stands a stone figure of Christ funded in 1934, and two natural monument trees grow near the church.