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Churches & monasteries
Komańcza
On the evening of 13 September 2006 one of the most remarkable wooden churches of the Carpathians burnt down in Komańcza, together with its iconostasis of 1832. Only the bell tower survived. The next day the Orthodox Archbishop of Przemyśl…
Churches & monasteries
Muszyna
The wooden church in Złockie does not look like a typical Lemko church. Instead of three towers in a row, it has a cross-shaped plan and a tall octagonal drum with a dome – a pattern foreign to the Lemko region but popular in Russia and th…
Churches & monasteries
Krynica-Zdrój
On the road from Grybów to Krynica-Zdrój, in the valley of the Mostysza stream, stands a church darkened by its shingles and crowned with three silvery onion domes. This is the former Greek Catholic church of St Michael the Archangel in Po…
Churches & monasteries
Puchły
The Orthodox Church of the Protection of the Mother of God in Puchły (say "POOH-hwih") is one of the most photogenic wooden churches in Poland. Painted a vivid blue and topped with a cluster of onion domes, it stands in a tiny village in t…
Churches & monasteries
Komańcza
In the valley of the Rzepedka stream, a tributary of the Osława, stands the wooden Greek Catholic Church of St Nicholas the Wonderworker from 1824 – a typical Eastern Lemko church with three onion domes and a free-standing bell tower. It s…
Churches & monasteries
Komańcza
The wooden Church of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God in Szczawne stands on a small rise above the Osława valley, by the road to Komańcza. Built in 1888–1889 as a Greek Catholic church, it now serves the Orthodox faithful. It h…
Churches & monasteries
Trześcianka
The green wooden Orthodox church of St Michael the Archangel, with a bulbous dome above the entrance and an onion-domed turret over the nave, is the best-known building in Trześcianka, one of the three villages on the Land of Open Shutters…
Churches & monasteries
Juchnowiec Kościelny
The small Orthodox Chapel of St Michael the Archangel in Wojszki has a surprising pedigree: it was funded in 1865 by the Governor-General of Vilnius, Mikhail Muravyov, nicknamed "the Hangman" for his brutal repression after the January Upr…
Churches & monasteries
Kleszczele
This white Orthodox church with blue onion domes in the centre of Kleszczele stands on the site of a former Catholic church and was partly built from its timber. The Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God was consecrated in 1877, and…
Churches & monasteries
Szczebrzeszyn
The white Orthodox church on ul. Sądowa looks modest, but it is the oldest sacred building owned by the Polish Orthodox Church. Its walls date from the 16th century and stand on the foundations of an even older church, and its history conn…
Churches & monasteries
Turzańsk
These wooden churches, known in Polish as cerkwie, are what remains of the Lemko and Boyko villages that filled the Osława and San valleys before the Second World War. The Lemkos and Boykos are Ruthenian highland communities of the Carpath…
Churches & monasteries
Siemiatycze
On Zaszkolna Street in Siemiatycze stands a massive white building with a tall hipped roof — the former synagogue that Princess Anna Jabłonowska funded for the town's Jews as compensation for the cemetery they lost when the town was rebuil…
Churches & monasteries
Ląd
From the road along the Warta you first see two openwork towers and a huge dome – the Baroque crown of an abbey that in the 18th century was considered the oldest Cistercian monastery in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Behind this faça…
Churches & monasteries
Owińska
In 1806 Napoleon arrived at the Cistercian convent in Owińska – and, according to legend and literature, an attempt on his life was made right here. Eight kilometres from Poznań's city limits stands a Baroque complex with the twin-towered…
Churches & monasteries
Olsztynek
The Gothic church in the centre of Olsztynek burned at least three times, lost its vault in 1914 and was almost completely destroyed at the end of the Second World War. Yet it still stands – one of the oldest buildings in town and, in summ…
Churches & monasteries
Głogówek
The Loreto House in Głogówek is a copy of the Holy House (Santa Casa) of Loreto, completed in 1630 at the expense of Count Georg III von Oppersdorff and enclosed within the Franciscan church at 3 Klasztorna Street. It is a "church within a…
Churches & monasteries
Gołąb
In the village of Gołąb on the Vistula, between Puławy and Dęblin, stands an exact copy of one of Europe's most famous shrines: the Holy House of Loreto, where according to tradition the Holy Family lived. Built in 1634–1638, the Loreto Ho…
Churches & monasteries
Narew
Every year on 2 August, the feast of the Prophet Elijah, Orthodox priests walk around the whole village with the residents, blessing farmyards and houses with holy water – a procession that was banned under communism. At the heart of this…
Churches & monasteries
Milówka
From outside it is a modest shingled church on a high hill in Pochodzita, a hamlet of Laliki. The interior is the surprise: walls and ceiling are covered with scenes scratched into the wood with a nail and knife or burnt into it, the work…
Churches & monasteries
Babice
This dark larch-wood church once stood more than 60 kilometres away, in Niegowić near Bochnia. It was here, in 1948–1949, that a newly ordained curate, Father Karol Wojtyła – the future Pope John Paul II – served his first post. In 1973 th…
Churches & monasteries
Zarzecze
In Zarzecze, a former village on the high right bank of the San and now part of Nisko, stands a larch-wood Church of Our Lady of the Snows dated to 1722. It was not built here, though: in 1923 it was moved from Jeżowe, bought by two Zarzec…
Churches & monasteries
Krzeszów
On Rotunda hill above the San river stands a wooden church that survived the front line of the First World War, only to come close to losing a battle with its own foundations. The three-aisled Baroque church begun in 1727 is a rarity – woo…
Churches & monasteries
Lubliniec
The small wooden Church of St Anne has stood in Lubliniec since 1653, although it has occupied its present spot only since the early 21st century. Between 1999 and 2001 it was dismantled and reassembled, partly with its old beams, and shif…
Churches & monasteries
Mikołów
Three Baroque domes above a shingle roof are visible from afar in Paniowy, now a district of Mikołów, which has one of the prettiest wooden churches in Upper Silesia. Work on the log-built Church of Saints Peter and Paul began in 1757, but…