History

Today’s chapel is made up of rebuilt original baths of the Goplana Hydropathic Facility from the last quarter of the 19th century. They were set up over the Prądnik River bed and were used by patients for hydrotherapy treatments, very fashionable at the time. In 1901 the baths were replaced with a chapel. According to the local tradition, this unusual situation of the building was related to a ban issued by the Russian Tsar Nicholas II, forbidding the construction of worship facilities on the so-called “paternal land;” it was intended as a form of repression for the local people’s participation in the 1863 January Uprising against Russia. To circumvent the band, the locals build a chapel “on water.” The originator of the idea was the director of the hydropathic facility, Dr Stanisław Niedzielski. Currently, the site is administered by Ojców National Park.

Description

This wooden structure was erected in 1901 over the Prądnik River on concrete supports. There is a water spring of St John nearby. It has some features of the health and spa style and combines elements of the local, Swiss, and Zakopane styles. Influenced by Witkiewicz’s design concepts and patterns, the interior was arranged in a similar fashion after 1901. It is an example of a kind of historicism and search for a national style by referring to the models of folk art (especially from the Podhale region). The chapel with its equipment is a much-telling example of the development of the health and spa tradition at the end of the 19th century, at the same time serving as a destination where the visitors were able to lift their national spirit. The building has a symmetrical, rectangular plan with a square inscribed inside. It has the shape of a cross, 11 m long and 5 m wide. The outer walls are built in the so-called Ojców style: an openwork strip at the top, tiled boards in the middle, and “staggered” boards laid vertically at the bottom. The chapel is topped with an openwork ave bell turret renovated in 1996. Inside, there are three altars in the shape of gables of peasant cottages. The top of the main one features the sun; below, there are folk figurines of five saints. To the sides, there are eagles, the symbol of Poland, over three snakes representing the occupiers of the Partitions period. The main altar has a painting of Our Lady of Help of 1901 produced by one of the spa patients. The tabernacle, a wooden candlestick and an external latticework repeating the decorative relief from the entrance door originate in 1972-1973. The pre-conciliar altar with stylised flowery images comes from 1983.

Open: Sundays and holidays between services.

Author of the note Roman Marcinek, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Kraków 26 X 2014

Bibliography

• Album Ojcowa, ca. 1931–39.
• Bąkowski K.: Przewodnik po okolicach Krakowa, Kraków 1909.
• Chrzanowski T., Kornecki M.: Sztuka Ziemi Krakowskiej, Kraków 1982.
• Dolina Prądnika, Pieskowa Skała, Kraków, Ojców, 1907, p. 30 and two maps.
• Hermanowicz H.: Dolina Prądnika, Kraków 1969.
• Kaplica przy zakładzie leczniczym w Ojcowie, Wędrowiec, Warszawa 1902, no. 22, pp. 424-425.
• Kornecki M.: Sztuka sakralna. Natura i kultura w krajobrazie Jury, Kraków 1993.
• Kozłowski S.: Ojców jako uzdrowisko podgórskie, Kraków 1907.