History

Orłów is an old settlement dating back to the 11th/ 12th century. The central part of the estate of the Orłowski family of the Junosza coat of arms. The town may have been established in this rural area in the first half of the 14th century, at the initiative of landowners who wished to create an administrative and economic centre for the multi-village complex. In that time, a parish and a school were also founded there. The oldest historical records concerning Orłowo as a town come from 1387. They mention a man called Piotrek, “a burgher from Orłowo”. From the end of the 14th century, Orłów was the capital of one of the smallest districts of the pre-partition Łęczyckie Voivodeship.

The first written records mentioning the church come from 1424 and concern the inheritance of an estate following the death of a castellan.

The Orłowo parish was very small. It consisted of only four villages and the income of the parish was very small too. According to a description from the beginning of the 16th century, it owned a land plot next to the church, where a clergy house was built and a garden. Nearby, there were also vicars’ houses and a school building.

According to a man called Łaski, the first wooden church was built in an inconvenient location, probably in a swampy area. Therefore, a different location was chosen for the brick church in the 15th century.

Orłów served as the capital of the district until the partitions, but it fell into ruin following the occupation of Łęczyca. Therefore, by decision of the Prussian authorities, Orłów lost the town rights.

The renovations of the church took place in the 17th century and then in 1849, 1910 and 1945.

Description

The church is situated in the central part of the village, on the road from Przewiska to Szewca Nadolnych, to the north of the Bzura River. It is positioned centrally in the village, in the middle of a square surrounded by a brick fence.

The church was built in the Gothic style, on a floor plan consisting of juxtaposed rectangles - the nave adjoined from the east by a narrower, polygonal chancel. From the north, the chancel is adjoined by the sacristy and the treasury. A porch was added to the nave from the south. In the southern part of the western elevation, there is a two-storey tower built on a circular plan.

The church is a single-nave hall with a lower, semi-hexagonally terminated chancel, with external buttresses and a tower at the gable wall. The church is made of brick laid in the Polish pattern, with inserted zendrówka bricks. The masonry has signs of having been altered many times. The buttresses are stepped, with each step covered with sheet metal. Inside the church, there is a wooden choir gallery accessed via wooden stairs. In the tower, there is a brick spiral staircase. The floor in the church is made from ceramic tiles. In the choir gallery, there is a plank floor. Roof structure – rafter-collar beam, assembled using three queen posts and a ridge-post. In the chancel, the roof truss has a rafter and collar beam structure, with sloping queen posts and a ridge-post. The turret is made of brick, with a wooden cupola and sheet metal cladding.

The body of the church consists of two high cuboids - of the nave, covered with a gable roof, and of the chancel covered with a multi-hipped roof The cuboid structures of the sacristy and of the porch are covered with a gable roof and a shed roof, respectively. The tower has a conical roof. All roofs have sheet metal cladding with seam joints.

The door and window openings are splayed, with smoothly plastered window reveals, white. All external elevations are smooth, brick, topped with a wide, smooth frieze and an under-eaves cornice running above it. The cornice and the frieze are plastered and painted white.

In the western elevation, in the ground level storey, a rectangular entrance opening is placed centrally, topped with a full arch. Above it, there is a round window opening with an eight-pane window. The wall is crowned with a smoothly plastered, triangular gable, decorated with a full-arched panel. The two tombstones flanking the entrance opening deserve special attention. They are Renaissance in style and date to the 16th century. They contain reliefs of knights with the Ciołek coats of arms. The tombstone on the northern side of the entrance shows Jan de Voziki (died 1542), the second, probably slightly older, shows a knight of unknown identity. The southern part of the western wall incorporates a two-storey fortified tower. There are narrow shooting openings in its wall.

The northern and southern elevations are smooth, brick, set on a low plinth. The axes of the elevations are accented by the rectangular, splayed, full-arched windows and door openings. The windows are high, with metal frames, multi-pane, glazed with coloured glass. There are three windows in the northern wall of the nave and two windows in the southern one. In the chancel, there are two and three window openings, respectively. The walls of the nave and of the chancel are supported by buttresses - four against the northern wall of the church and five against the southern one.

The eastern elevation is formed by the wall terminating the chancel. Between the two buttresses flanking it, there is a recess left by a window which has been bricked up. Inside the church, there is a pointed-arch rood. In the chancel, there is a stellar vault with impressive keystones. In the sacristy, there is a groin vault with splayed, rectangular, flat-headed window and door openings, leading to the barrel vaulted treasury. In the nave, there is a flat, beam, plastered ceiling, with a reed mat used as a plaster base. Above the staircase in the tower, there is a false brick vault.

In the church, there is a Baroque baptismal font, a late Baroque sculpture of St. John of Nepomuk, an altar of the Transfiguration of the Lord from the first half of the 19th century (at the northern wall) and a 19th century crucifix.

The tomb of the Skarżyński family is situated in the eastern part of the church cemetery. It is a brick, Classicist building. It was built on a rectangular plan with an arcade resting on two columns. It is covered with a gable roof.

It is known to contain the remains of three people: Baron Ambroży Skarżyński (born on 6 December 1787, died on 6 June 1868) officer of the 1st Polish Light Cavalry Lancers Regiment of the Imperial Guard of Napoleon I; Józefa née Sokołowka, Pomian coat of arms (wife of Ambroży, who received the estate of Orłów as dowry), Jerzy Skarżyński (born on 7 June 1819, died on 8 March 1875), son of Ambroży, participant of the uprising of 1848. The tomb may contain the remains of the fourth person - one of Ambroży’s children, who was born after 1831 and died a few years later.

The church is open to the public. It can be toured inside upon prior arrangement by phone or after church services. More information is available on the website:

https://diecezja.lowicz.pl/parafia/bozego-ciala-w-orlowie/ or by phone (24) 254-02-22

Compiled by Agnieszka Lorenc – Karczewska, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Łódź. 21 May 2019

Bibliography

• Record sheet, Church, Orłów, compiled by Ambroziewicz T., 1986, Archives of the Voivodeship Monuments Protection Office in Łódź and the Archives of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Warsaw,
• Gradowska Anna, ze studiów nad rzeźbą renesansową na Mazowszu (nagrobki katedry płockiej) [in:] Notatki płockie, no. 10/2-32 from 1963, p. 39
• Katalog zabytków sztuki w Polsce, Województwo łódzkie, vol. 2, Warszawa 1954, p. 37.
• Zajączkowski S.M., Powiat orłowski do lat siedemdziesiątych XVI wieku. Studia z dziejów osadnictwa struktury własnościowej i stosunków kościelnych, Łódź 1996.
• Zajączkowski S.M., Sieć parafialna na obszarze przedrozbiorowego powiatu orłowskiego do końca XVI wieku, Kutno 2001.
• Zajączkowski S.M., Uwagi o przeszłości Orłowa do lat siedemdziesiątych XVI wieku, “Rocznik Łódzki” 1996, vol. XLIII, pp. 53–72.
• Zajączkowski S, Zajączkowski S.M., materiały do słownika geograficzno-historycznego dawnych ziem łęczyckiej i sieradzkiej do 1400 r., part II, Łódź 1970.
• http://szlachta.org.pl/szlacheckie-i-ziemianskie-groby/orlow.html