History

The establishment of a parish in Malużyn in 1410 is related to the march of the Polish army heading for Grunwald and apparent stationing of the King Władysław Jagiełło there. It is said that the first church was built in the village at that time. The current church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built owing to the funds of Piotr Grzywa, a landlord of Radzymin and Malużyn, in 1470 in place of a former, burned down temple. The surviving brick parts of the church date back to that period. There is a written mention about the St Adalbert church (the initial patron of the temple) from 1599. It had two chapels: a wooden one of the Biliński family and the brick one of the Krobiński family. Around 1640, from funds donated by the landlord Piotr Malużyński, the church was redesigned: the abovementioned side chapels at the nave were torn down, a sacristy and a treasury were added and window openings were altered. In 1649 the temple was re-consecrated by Bishop of Płock, W. Tolibowski. In 1655 a wooden bell tower was erected near the church. Another renovation of the church took place in 1694. In 1780 another wooden nave was added. It has survived to this day. In later years the church was refurbished multiple times; in 1817, 1853 (construction of the surviving steeple, interior painting), 1882 and 1952.

Description

The church is situated in the central part of the village, on the south-west side of the road joining Sochocin and Glinojeck, on a plot similar to a rectangle surrounded by a brick wall. A bell tower is located in the west corner of the church graveyard.

The church is not oriented towards the east and was built of wooden material in a post and beam structure, reinforced with vertical supports, with walls covered with vertical boards and battens on both sides, as well as of bricks (chancel, sacristy and treasury) plastered on the inside and the outside (sacristy and treasury). The single-nave church was built on a rectangular floor plan, with a broader chancel terminating in a straight wall, featuring buttresses at the corners. A brick sacristy with a separate treasury was added to the chancel at the north-east end. A wooden side porch, preceded by a vestibule from a later period, was added to the chancel on the south-west side. A sheet metal roof is of a gable type, separate above the nave and the chancel; the sacristy is covered with a shed roof, while the porch with a gable roof. On the roof ridge above the nave there is a quadrangular wooden steeple in the Gothic Revival style, crowned with a soaring cupola with a metal crucifix.

The interior is covered with a flat ceiling. The choir gallery above the entrance rests on two decorative wooden pillars. The walls and the ceiling are decorated with figural polychrome. The nave walls are partitioned by wooden pilasters surmounted with a richly profiled, multi-plane cornice with dentils. A decorative portal to the sacristy, terminating in a basket arch, positioned in a two-partite semi-circular blind with a support, stands out in the north wall of the chancel. The Early Baroque main altar originates from the mid-17th century. The side altars follow the Gothic Revival principles, while the pulpit and the confessionals are of the Early Baroque style. 

A wooden bell tower included in the complex was erected on a square floor plan, in a post-and-beam structure, and is covered with vertical board-and-batten siding. In the upper part of the walls of the feature the bell openings are visible (two per each side) in the form of recumbent rectangles, obscured by wooden shutters. The high walls are covered in their entirety with a tent roof clad in wood shingles, with ox-eye windows on each side, crowned with a metal pinnacle.

The building is accessible to visitors during masses and following previous arrangements with the parish priest in Malużyn.

Author of the note Jerzy Szałygin, National Institute of Cultural Heritage, Regional Branch in Warsaw 16-02-2018

Bibliography

• Record sheets of monuments of architecture, the so-called white sheet: Kościół parafialny p.w. Zwiastowania NMP, prepared by Bożena Ankiewicz, 1995, the so-called green sheet: Kościół parafialny p.w. Św. Wojciecha i Zwiastowania NMP, prepared by J. Królik, 1967.
• Katalog Zabytków Sztuki w Polsce, vol. X. Dawne woj. warszawskie, issue 1. Ciechanów i okolice, Warsaw 1977.
• The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary church in Malużyn: http://mazowieckiszlaktradycji.com/poi-lista/kosciol-pw-zwiastowania-najswietszej-marii-panny-w-maluzynie/?thematicPathId=1264
• Malużyn – the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary church: http://www.drewnianemazowsze.pl/maluzyn-kosciol/
• Szałygin J., Wiśniewski J., Materiały do katalogu drewnianego budownictwa sakralnego na Mazowszu, Mazowsze no. 3/94, pp. 53-54.