Inside the church, visitors can admire decorative tombstones from the Renaissance period.

History

The existence of a parish in Miechowice Oławskie was first noted in written sources back in 1361; in the 1530s, the church was taken over by the Evangelical community. The current chancel, bearing the hallmarks of the Gothic style, was erected in the 15th century. A timber-framed nave based on field stone foundation was most likely constructed in the 16th century. In 1881, however, the church underwent a substantial redesign. The existing nave was replaced by a new, Gothic Revival structure adjoined by a tower to the west; the tower’s original tented roof was subsequently damaged in 1945. From 1946 onwards, the church has remained abandoned.

Description

The ruins of the church are located in the middle of the village, surrounded by the remains of a cemetery wall made of granite blocks and field stones.

All that remains of the original structure today are the peripheral walls of the chancel along with the remnants of cross-rib vaulting and the traces of the walls of the nave and annexes that used to flank the chancel to the north and the south and which also feature underground crypts; the tower is also still extant, albeit without its original top section. The church was a single-nave building oriented towards the east, designed on a rectangular floor plan and featuring a narrower chancel from the Gothic period (15th century) with a polygonal end section, its walls supported by buttresses. The chancel was adjoined by a Gothic Revival main body and a tower positioned towards the west (built in 1881). The tower had originally been crowned with a pyramid roof with decorative, triangular gablets.

The chancel and the annexes thereof are made of stone ashlar blocks with brick additions, while the nave and the tower are made purely of brick; traces of plasterwork can still be seen on the surviving walls. The chancel is separated from the nave by a rood arch with a pointed outline; the windows of the chancel and the tower are likewise topped with pointed arches. The inner walls of he chancel incorporate Renaissance tomb effigies with recumbent figures of the deceased (now positioned in an upright position) as well as a damaged Baroque epitaph plaque (created after the year 1721). Two tomb effigies originally embedded in the walls of the church have been relocated to the University of Opole back in the 1990s and grace its main auditorium to this day. In the year 2000, during the rescue works performed on the site, fragments of frescos portraying St Matthew and St Bartholomew have been removed from the walls and transferred to a new support; following the completion of conservation works, these paintings have been placed at the offices of the Monument Protection Officer for the Lower Silesia province in Wrocław.

The site is open to visitors.

compiled by Beata Sebzda, Regional Branch of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Wrocław, 21-07-2015.

Bibliography

• Katalog zabytków sztuki w Polsce. Seria Nowa, vol. IV, issue 6, Województwo wrocławskie (dolnośląskie), powiat strzeliński, E. Kołaczkiewicz (ed.), Warsaw 2008, pp. 132-133.
• Pilch J., Leksykon zabytków architektury Dolnego Śląska. Warsaw 2005, p. 225.
• Zabytki sztuki w Polsce. Śląsk, Warsaw 2006, p. 558.