Among the elements of the church’s furnishings is a late Gothic painting Vision of St. Hyacinth from around 1500 by the Master of the Annunciation from Jodłownik (formerly in the Dominican Church in Krakow), which after the canonisation of St. Hyacinth Odrowąż in 1594 played a key role in shaping the iconography of this saint, as evidenced by numerous paintings modelled on his style from the 17th-18th century.

History

It is believed that the oldest church in Odrowąż was built in the 13th century - as suggested by the large area of its parish district and patron. The first mention of the church in the sources appears in 1440. Another reference is included in the Liber Beneficiorum of Archbishop Jan Łaski from 1511-23; thanks to it, we know that it was made of brick at the time and carried the name of St. Catherine of Alexandria. Probably in the 1st half of the 17th century, the Oleśnicki family handed the building over to the Calvinists, It was seriously damaged during the Swedish Deluge. The reconstruction and modernisation of the church’s furnishing was carried out after 1660 on the initiative of the then parish priest Jan Michalski - a lecturer at the Krakow Academy, with considerable support from Jan Samuel and Jadwiga Świderski (at that time the owners of Odrowąż). Before 1666, Fr Michalski brought the painting The Vision of St. Hyacinth to the church from the Dominican church in Krakow. This fact had an enormous impact on the further history of the building, because in 1669 a second saint was added to the name of the church - St. Hyacinth of Poland, and the painting itself became famous for many miracles. In 1672 the stucco decoration of the church interior was completed. In the following decades it was renovated many times, but the quality of the work was not satisfactory, and in 1836 its technical condition was described as poor. Due to financial reasons, the necessary renovation of the church was only carried out in 1856-58. In the course of work, a porch and two chapels of St. Nicholas and St. Sebastian were added from the west. Further renovations were carried out in the 1870s-90s (a steeple and a new organ were erected), in 1910 (renovation of the sacristy) and in 1963-4 and 1996. The last thorough conservation of the church took place in 2002-8. Work of a similar nature in the years 2009-12 was also carried out on part of its furnishing.

Description

The parish church in Odrowąż was erected to the south of the market square, on a plateau, in the middle of a polygonal plot of land, which is surrounded by a wall with a storied belfry from 1856-58 and a morgue in the fence line. The Gothic temple, which has been rebuilt many times, does not have any distinctive stylistic features. At present, it is an oriented three-nave basilica, with a wall-pillar main nave and a rectangular chancel, closed by a low apse. A low, square sacristy was added to the chancel from the south. From the west, a low annex is adjacent to the nave body with a narrow porch on the axis, with rectangular chapels on the sides: St. Nicholas to the south and St. Sebastian were added from the west. The body of the church was made of stone and brick, plastered and covered with buttresses. The main nave is covered by a high, gable roof with a steeple. The modest façade of the temple is distinguished by a two-storey western façade with a triangular gable, preceded by a single-storey annex adorned with pyramid surrounds of the window and door openings. The entrance from the porch to the nave is accentuated by a stone portal from the 3 quarter of the 17th century. The interior of the church is covered with: a cross-barrel vault (in the nave and the sacristy) and barrel vaults with lunettes (in the chancel), barrel vaults (in the porch and western chapels). The vaults, archways and arches in the naves and the chancel were covered with stucco decoration with floral and geometric motifs from the third quarter of the 17th century (there is the coat of arms of the Krakow Academy on the rood with the date 1672) and the second half of the 19th century. Among the interior furnishings of the temple, the following are noteworthy: the pulpit and the altars by the pillars from the 1640s-60s (?), the altars in the side naves: of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Częstochowa and St. Hyacinth from the 1660s (?), with the paining The Vision of St. Hyacinth from ca. 1500. (Master of the Annunciation from Jodłownik?), a Baroque main altar, ca. 1700 (an undefined Krakow workshop?), a stone baptismal font from 1563, the Crucifixion Group from the second half of the 16th century (figures of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist from the early 16th century, circle of the Master of Figures from the Church of the Holy Cross in Krakow?), a moneybox from the 2nd half of the 17th century and a marble “epitaph” of Jan S. and Jadwiga Świderski from around 1682 (an undefined Chęciny workshop?), Neoclassical pipe organ casing from 1883.

The monument is open to visitors. The interiors may be explored upon prior arrangement with the parish priest.

Łukasz Piotr Młynarski, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Kielce, 16.06.2015.

Bibliography

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