It is one of the few surviving medieval monasteries of the Pauline Fathers in Poland.

History

The first parish church of St. Martin, mentioned in historical records from 1399, was made of wood. The brick church representing the Gothic style was built in the first half of the 15th century. Its construction was undertaken at some point before 1425 by Mikołaj Oporowski - the Voivode of Łęczyca. The construction was completed by his sons Władysław Oporowski, after they had inherited the family estate in 1428. From 1434, Władysław was the bishop of Włocławek, later he became the archbishop of Gniezno and primate of Poland. Piotr Oporowski held the office of the voivode of Łęczyca.

The church is single-nave without a separate chancel. It contains a tomb crypt. The church was erected on a floor plan of an elongated rectangle, with a porch from the south. The interior was covered with a wooden ceiling. The modest ornamental elements on the external elevations included white-plastered pointed-arch panels, a frieze made from squared bricks crowning the walls of the nave, as well as zendrówka bricks arranged into rhombuses. The western elevation is thought to have been crowned with a decorative gable, as evidenced by the two half-gables preserved under the roof next to the tower.

In 1453, the Oporowski family – Władysław and Piotr handed the church over to the order of St. Paul the First Hermit - followers of the rule of St. Augustine. The brothers wished to honour the memory of their parents - Krystyna and Mikołaj Oporowski, buried in the crypt of the church.

In the third quarter of the 15th century, Władysław and Piotr Oporowski donated funds for the construction of a Gothic, brick residential house for the monks (now the southern wing of the monastery). The house was altered many times. It has survived to our times as one of the three medieval monastery buildings of the Pauline order (the other two can be found in Pińczów and Beszowa). On the ground floor of the two-storey detached building, there once was a chapter house, a hall and a refectory with a kitchen. The upper floor was occupied by one large dwelling, with makeshift partitions into monastic cells - a dormitory. The interiors were covered with wooden ceilings. The external elevations of the Gothic monastery were decorated with triangular gables filled with white-plastered panels. Other decorations included a plastered strip dividing the storeys and zendrówka bricks arranged into rhombuses. Each of Gothic window openings was topped with a full arch.

The founders of the monastery were buried in the crypt under the church. The tombstone of Piotr Oporowski, who died in 1467, once placed in the church floor, was relocated outside. It presents a poorly visible figure of knight Peter clad in armour, etched in sandstone, as well as the date of construction of the tombstone - 1468.

At the end of the 15th century, the estate of Oporów was parcelled out, which had a negative effect on the functioning of the monastery, as it deprived the monastery of adequate resources. The property bequeathed to the monastery by the bishop of Wrocław Andrzej Oporowski, son of the voivode Piotr, who died in 1483, could not help much. Andrzej Oporowski donated two hundred grzywnas for the completion of a chapel next the church, whose construction had commenced some time earlier. He also bequeathed his library and several expensive items.

In the mid-17th century, in 1646, Father Augustyn Kordecki was the prior in Oporów. In 1657, during the “Swedish Deluge”, Oporów became the scene of dramatic events. Swedish soldiers robbed the church and set fire to the monastery when they were leaving Oporów.

At the end of the 17th century, the church and the monastery were in a very poor condition In 1710, unidentified benefactors donated funds for renovation works.

In 1740, the heirs of Oporów, Józef Sołłohub, voivode of Vitebsk, and his wife Antonina née Ogiński, provided funding for a thorough renovation of the monastery and alteration of the church. The church was heightened and its interiors were remodelled in the Baroque style. The walls were divided by double pilasters, with profiled bases and capitals supporting a rich entablature. The nave and the chancel were covered with a cross barrel vault. A rood wall with a full arch was also erected. It separated the nave from the chancel. The Baroque altars were built at that time, probably in the studio of Bernard Bernatowicz - a woodcarver from Warsaw.

In the third quarter of the 18th century, the chapel of St. John the Baptist replaced the previous, dilapidated, Gothic chapel. A new sacristy was also built then and a Baroque cupola was installed atop the church tower.

In the 1780s, the monastery was expanded to include a two-storey western wing, connecting the Gothic monastic house with the church. For some time, the building housed the reopened parish school.

In 1819, the monastery was dissolved. Between 1849 and 1955, both the church and the two wings of the monastery were remodelled. At that time, the parish was managed by diocesan priests. In 1859, the government decided to return the monastery to the Pauline Fathers. However, the monks were forbidden to return there again by the tsarist decree of 1864. For nearly one hundred years, the parish was administered by diocesan priests. The renovation carried out in the 1860s was partly financed by the heir of Oporów, Tomasz Orsetti. It consisted in the replacement of roofs over all buildings and modification of the interiors. The next thorough restoration of the monastery buildings and renovation of the church interior took place in 1889. In the nave, a choir gallery was added from the west, containing a pipe organ casing. The windows were glazed with stained glass produced in the studio of Albert Zerduer, donated by Józefa and Wilhelm Orsetti. At some point before 1900, the church was enlarged westwards. As part of the extension works, the chapel was incorporated in the structure of the church, covered with a roof and extended to include one more bay. A sacristy with two new vestibules was also built. In 1938, the interiors of the church were covered with frescoes painted by Szreter.

For some years after the Second World War, the church was closed.

In 1957, the Paulines returned to Oporów again, taking over the monastery and the parish. Two years later, during a renovation of the church, the chapel was embellished with stained glass windows produced by Stanisław Powalisz - a well-known artist from Poznań.

Between 1979 and 1983, the monastery complex underwent renovation and restoration works. The roofs of both the wings of the monastery were replaced and the interior of the Gothic house was remodelled. As a result of the conservation works, the original window openings with semi-circular arches, which had been bricked up, became more clearly visible on the external elevations of the Gothic wing.

Description

The monastery complex and the church of the Pauline Fathers is situated in the village of Oporów, on a hill in the south-western part of the village, south of the road to Kutno. It occupies the northern and central part of a large land plot surrounded by a brick, stone fence.

It is a Gothic church with a Baroque interior. The church is one-nave with a narrower chancel, terminated with a straight wall. Oriented. The principal block was erected on the floor plan of an elongated rectangle. From the south, it is adjoined by a rectangular porch. From the west, it is adjoined by a tower on a square plan and from the north - by a sequence of rooms, which includes (starting from the east) a vestibule, a sacristy, a chapel and another vestibule.

The body of the church is rectangular, with external walls supported by corner buttresses, and is covered with a gable roof. The northern annex has a shed roof, the southern porch is covered with a gable roof, whereas the tower is topped with a Baroque cupola with a lantern.

The church is made of brick, the principal block and the annex are plastered, the elevations of the southern vestibule and of the tower are made of brick laid in the Gothic pattern.

Barrel vault. The roofs covering the body of the church and the porch are clad with copper sheet. The roofs over the northern annex and the cupola of the tower are clad with zinc sheet. The rectangular window openings are topped with a segmental arch. In the openings of the principal block, the windows are embedded in deep recesses. They are filled with stained glass. They have metal frames and are divided into multiple sections. The floors are made from terracotta tiles on a cement base.

The western elevation is formed by the wall of the tower, attached centrally to the church. From behind it, only the northern and southern corners of the former gable of the church are visible, as well as the northern corner of the church reinforced with a buttress and the elevation of the single-storey annex – a smooth wall with a central window opening, topped with a triangular gable, which conceals a shed roof. In the ground level storey of the tower, there is a rectangular entrance, topped with a full arch, splayed, contoured with a plaster surround. Above the door, there is a splayed, rectangular blende, topped with a full arch. In each of the next two storeys, there are three rectangular, full-arched blendes. The storeys are separated by narrow dividing cornices. The tower has a four-hipped roof topped with a lantern and a triple cupola.

The other elevations of the church are set on a low plinth. They are smoothly plastered and topped with an under eaves cornice. Their corners are supported by buttresses.

On the axis, at the southern elevation, there is a single-storey, brick porch. The entrance from the south is rectangular and topped with a pointed arch. Above it, there is a tripartite top, which conceals the gable roof. The top comprises rectangular, pointed-arch blendes, separated by pinnacles. Over the pinnacles, there are triangular tops. On both sides of the porch, at the height of the first storey, there are three pointed-arch blendes in the wall of the church. Above, there are five window openings.

In the eastern elevation, at the height of the first storey, there is a centrally placed rectangular window recess topped with a pointed arch. In the recess, there is a sculpture of Pietà and a cross. The recess is preceded by a small, cast-iron balcony and flanked by decorative panels of a similar shape. Above, there is a single window opening, positioned centrally. The wall has a triangular top lined with wide cornices, with a single window opening against the background of the smooth tympanum. The eastern elevation of the single-storey annex – a smooth wall with a centrally placed window opening, topped with a triangular gable, which conceals the shed roof.

In the northern elevation, the wall of the northern annex on the ground floor is decorated with a smooth panel, divided into six sections by pilaster strips. The extreme walls contain doorways and the other ones contain window openings. Above, against the background of the smooth wall, there are five axes of the principal block of the church, accented by the window openings.

Inside, there is a three-bay nave. The walls are divided by double pilasters. In between the pilasters, there are shallow, blind arcades with profiled, full-arched archivolts. There are two arcades in the chancel and three in the nave. Smooth pilasters with profiled capitals on profiled bases support the rich entablature. Cross-barrel vault. Baroque choir gallery. The polychromes in the church were painted by Szretter in 1938.

In the main altar, there is a painting of Our Lady of Częstochowa from the 17th century in silver robes from the 17th and 18th centuries. Above the altar, there is a painting of the patron of the church - St. Martin, painted around 1840. The two side altars of the Heart of Jesus and the Transfiguration are wooden, ornately divided into sections, of the architectural type, with paintings from the beginning of the 20th century. The painting depicting the Transfiguration was painted by T. Mucharski in 1912. The painting of St. Joseph was painted by B. Rutkowski.

In the chapel of St. John the Baptist and St. Peter the Hermit, there is a painting from the end of the 18th century. The painting shows the patron of the order - St. Paul the Hermit, with the monastery in Oporów visible in the background. At the top of the altar, there is a painting of St. John the Baptist. It is a 20th-century copy of a 17th-century painting by B.E. Murillo.

The monastery of the Pauline Fathers was erected on a L-shaped floor plan. The longer wing, positioned on the north-south axis, connects the older building, positioned on the east-west axis, with the church building. The wings of the cloister are rectangular, two-storey, each covered with a gable roof with sheet metal cladding. A single-storey extension built on a rectangular plan, covered with a shed roof, adjoins the eastern wall of the older - southern wing. The elevations of this wing are made of brick. In the eastern wall, a triangular gable covered with cornices is visible above the annex. In the tympanum, four plastered blendes are separated by brick pilaster strips. In the centrally positioned blendes, there are rectangular window openings. In the six-axial southern elevation, the axes are accented by rectangular, flat-headed window and door openings. The corners of the wall are strengthened by pilaster strips. The four-axial, northern, courtyard-facing elevation is articulated in a similar way.

The western elevation of the western wing is six-axial, plastered and divided into decorative panels by pilaster strips. The decorative panels incorporate window and door openings. Each opening is enclosed by an eared surround. On the ground floor of the eastern and western walls, on the northernmost axis, there is a rectangular, basket-arched opening of the coach gateway. The eastern elevation is four-axial, plastered, without divisions.

The two-storey western wing connecting the Gothic monastic house with the church once housed a parish school. The rooms on the ground floor and on the first floor have barrel vaults with lunettes, while the corridors are covered with sail vaults. There is also a small, windowless treasury accessible only from the first floor, placed next to the entrance gate, near the tower.

The church is open to the public. The church can be toured upon prior appointment oporow.paulini@gmail.com,  www.oporow.paulini.pl

Compiled by Agnieszka Lorenc - Karczewska, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Łódź 30 May 2019

Bibliography

• Record sheet, Church of the Pauline Fathers, Parish Church of St. Martin, Oporów, compiled by Lisińska H., 2000, Archives of the Voivodeship Monuments Protection Office in Łódź and the Archives of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Warsaw.
• Record sheet, Monastery of the Pauline Fathers, Oporów, compiled by Lisińska H., 2000, Archives of the Voivodeship Monuments Protection Office in Łódź and the Archives of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Warsaw.
• Katalog zabytków sztuki w Polsce, vol. 2, Województwo łódzkie, vol. Tekst, Warszawa 1954, pp. 34-35
• http://www.oporow.paulini.pl/ History of the church, authors unknown, no date of publication available