Church of Our Lady of Zbarazh, Prałkowce

In Prałkowce, just outside Przemyśl, a former Greek Catholic church from 1842 holds a painting that travelled from today's Ukraine via Leżajsk to the San valley. It is Our Lady of Zbarazh (Zbaraż) – a 16th-century copy of the Częstochowa icon painted on copper, before which, according to tradition, King John III Sobieski prayed. Beside the church stands a wooden bell tower from the late 16th century, a stop on the Wooden Architecture Route of the Podkarpackie region.

History: a fire, a forest and a new church

The masonry, Neoclassical church, dedicated to the Presentation of the Virgin Mary in the Temple, was funded by Eustachy Drużbacki. It was built in 1842 on the site of a wooden church that had burned down in 1840. According to a story quoted by the Wooden Architecture Route, during that fire the landowner asked the people trying to save the church to help him put out a fire in his forest – and two years later he built a large new church of brick.

After the Greek Catholic population was resettled in 1945–1947, the building was taken over by the Roman Catholic Church. In the 1960s it was renovated, and a music gallery, a sacristy and a flat for the priest were added. Today the church is cared for by the Michaelite Fathers.

The painting from Zbarazh

The painting of Our Lady of Zbarazh originally hung in the Bernardine church in Zbarazh, now in western Ukraine. Tradition says that John III Sobieski prayed before it, and King Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki gave it a silver cover. After the Second World War the Bernardines took the image to Leżajsk, and since 1972 it has been in the high altar at Prałkowce. Today it is set on a metal panel with reliefs of Polish eagles.

The late-16th-century bell tower

• A post-and-frame structure with sloping walls, an overhanging belfry chamber and an open gallery.
• A pyramid roof with a four-sided onion-shaped turret and an iron cross.
• Wooden shingles on the walls and roof, with shingled skirt roofs above the foundation and below the belfry chamber.
• A reconstruction in 1967 preserved the building's original character.

Tripto tip

Notice the contrast: a Neoclassical masonry church and next to it a centuries-old bell tower clad entirely in shingles – one of the few places nearby where two such different eras fit in a single photo. Allow 20–30 minutes. The church interior is easiest to see around service times. On a hill south-west of the village stands artillery fort GW VII "Prałkowce", part of the outer ring of the Przemyśl Fortress – a good short walk for anyone interested in fortifications.