History

The first wooden St Stanislaus church was built either in 1479, or in 1480. It was founded by the Niwiski family. The current church was erected in 1787 owing to funds donated by Kazimierz Ossoliński, the Chamberlain of Mielnik, and his wife Antonina nee Butler. Foreman Lisiecki was the builder of the church. The church was renovated in 1860 and 1884. It was consecrated again in 1904. The building represents a single-nave, aisleless, Classicist type.

Description

The church is situated in the centre of the town, on the north frontage of the market square. It stands on a small elevation, opposite the mouth of the road to Siedlce, and its front facade faces the south. The church cemetery is surrounded by a fence made of broken fieldstones. A gate is positioned in the fence, along the church axis. The church was set on a rectangular floor plan, made of brick and plastered. It faces a chancel in the north. It is a single-nave, aisleless building, with a nave of rounded corners on the inside and a slightly narrower square chancel. Rectangular annexes, housing a porch and a sacristy on the ground floor, are located on its sides. The upper storey includes two glazed boxes. Under the chancel there is a crypt accessible through a door in the northern chancel wall. The main corpus has a compact, cuboid body with two cuboid, two-storey annexes. The roof over the corpus is of a gable type, whereas the presbytery is covered with a three-sloped roof. A steeple on a square plan is covered with a tented roof. Mono-pitched roofs cover the annexes. The front façade has three axes, two-storeys, is rusticated on the corners, partitioned by single pilasters on the sides and doubled in its central part. The lower storey includes a two-winged entrance door along the axis, terminating in a profiled surround. The upper storey has a balcony door with a transom light along the axis, terminating in a portal with a triangular gable. There are two hemispherically vaulted niches on the sides with sculptures of St Joseph and Anthony. Entablature with a triglypgh frieze and a cornice on corbels surmount the pilasters. Beyond, there is a gable accentuated by lesenes with an oculus along the axis and quarter-circular volutes on the sides, crowned with a triangular pediment and a cornice on corbels. Side façade with six axes, partitioned, with doubled lesenes on common plinths; a bottom-left two-wing entrance door; beyond, a rectangular blind window segment-headed with a small two-wing, six-field window. The subsequent three axes include rectangular segment-headed windows with cornices underneath them. Annexes contain rusticated corners. The interior walls are partitioned with pairs of Tuscan pilasters supporting entablature with a triglypgh frieze and a modillion cornice. Between pilasters there are tall arcaded niches with semicircular arches, including segment-headed windows and panels underneath the windows. The ceiling is flat. The choir gallery in the central part includes an avant-corps, atop semi-circular arcades with Tuscan engaged columns terminating in a baluster in between. The porch and sacristy have a cross-barrel vault.

The structure is open to visitors throughout the year.

Compiled by Katarzyna Kosior, Regional Branch of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Warsaw, 28-10-2014.

Bibliography

• Katalog Zabytków Sztuki w Polsce, Tom X Województwo Warszawskie, zeszyt 22 powiat siedlecki, Instytut Sztuki PAN, Warszawa 1965 r.
• Karta ewidencyjna zabytku architektury i budownictwa tzw Karta Biała, D. Pikula, 1991 r.
• Atlas Zabytków Architektury w Polsce, H. Faryna-Paszkiewicz, M. Omilanowska, R.Pasieczny, Wydawnictwo naukowe PWN. Warszawa 2003 r.
• J. Żabicki, Leksykon zabytków architektury Mazowsza i Podlasia, Arkady, Warszawa 2010 r.