The site is located in an area designated as a monument of history:

Chełmno – Old Town – recognised as a Monument of History by  way of Ordinance of the President of the Republic of Poland dated 13 April 2005 (Dz. U. [Polish Journal of Laws] No. 64 of 2005, item 568).

History

The church was constructed in the years 1280-1290, and then in the first two decades of the 14th century it was extended towards the west, with the current tower added in the same period. A hospital building was added to the southern wall of the church and the church mainly served its patients. In the Middle Ages, the hospital was under the patronage of the Order of Saint Mary. From 1694 onwards, the church belonged to the Daughters of Charity, and after the nuns moved to a former Benedictine convent in 1828, it was used as a military storehouse. At the turn of the 19th century, the building of the hospital by the church was demolished; traces of demolition can still be seen on the southern wall of the chancel. The church was renovated in the years 1903-1905 and 1937-1938. It started serving religious purposes again in 1946 as a filial church of the parish of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Since 2003, knights of the Chełmno Land Banner (Polish: Chorągiew Ziemi Chełmińskiej) have organised their exhibition in the church. Each year, the church celebrates Mass on Whit Sunday.

Description

The church is situated in the southern part of the Chełmno old town complex by the town walls, near the Toruń Gate. The aisleless body of the Gothic church is oriented towards the east and erected on an elongated rectangular floor plan church, with a five-storey tower on a rectangular floor plan from the west. In the north-western corner of the tower, there is a single-stepped buttress. The main body is covered with a gable roof while the tower features a pyramid roof with monk-and-nun tiles and is topped with a Maltese cross.

The church is made of brick laid in the monk bond, with the foundation of the (northern and southern) walls of the nave made of stone. The interior features a false barrel vault (most likely from the 18th century) while the porch at the ground floor level of the tower features a beamed ceiling. The pointed-arch window openings are splayed on both sides.

The east façade features a slender pointed-arch window opening on the axis, which is flanked by pointed-arch blind windows in the upper section. The façade is topped with a triangular gable flanked by two diagonally positioned pinnacles with pyramid-shaped top sections. The base of the gable is adorned with a frieze made of two rows of bricks laid diagonally; the upper section features a wide pointed-arch blind window which houses three smaller blind windows.

The south façade has five axes and features a bricked-up profiled portal on the western axis.

The north façade has six axes, with a visible seam which sets the older, three-axial eastern section apart from the western section.

The west façade features gablets embedded in the tower, of which the northern one was reconstructed c. 1905. The tower is divided into five storeys of varying height, which are separated from one another by a band frieze and sections of dentil frieze; the storeys are adorned with pointed-arch blind windows, with the middle storey featuring a pair of identical window openings and the bottom one featuring a central pointed-arch portal.

Inside, the chancel is separated by three steps and a brick pew along the walls. In the southern wall of the chancel, there is a bricked-up pointed-arch portal from the late 13th century, which originally led to the hospital building; in the eastern wall, there is a bipartite mullioned window with stained glass created by F. Romańczyk in 1938. The rood beam features a Baroque crucifix (18th century). The tower opens up to the nave in a tall pointed arch with chamfered corners and is divided into two storeys by the choir gallery, with the porch on the ground floor and the choir gallery on the first floor. The church interior is adorned with medieval painted decorations uncovered during the renovation works carried out in 1937; they were created in two stages: the older ones dating back to the 14th century and the more recent ones to the 15th century, and partially repainted, including the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary and the Last Supper. The church also features paintings moved from a former Dominican church: Rococo paintings from the 2nd half of the 18th century and paintings from the 19th century, including the portrait of Herman von Salz signed “Hohn 1825”; Baroque sculptures originally belonging to the removed altarpieces and 19th-century procession flags.

Limited access to the building. The building can be viewed from the outside.

Prepared by Marzenna Stocka, National Heritage Board of Poland, Regional Branch in Toruń 16 November 2017

Bibliography

• Chrzanowski T., Kornecki M., Chełmno, 1991, pp. 173-176
• Diecezja toruńska. Historia i teraźniejszość, Stanisław Kardasz (ed.), Vol. 4, Dekanat chełmiński, Toruń 1996, pp. 72-76
• Katalog zabytków sztuki w Polsce, Vol. XI: Dawne województwo bydgoskie, issue 4: Dawny powiat chełmiński, Tadeusz Chrzanowski and Marian Kornecki (eds.), Warszawa 1976, pp. 50-53