Anne in Olesno located about 5 km away. The wooden churches and chapels are the oldest group of monuments of wooden architecture, which is a testament to the old design solutions and an important feature of the cultural landscape.

History

The church was erected before 1679; a visitation report from that year contains information about the existence of a wooden church with a renovated sacristy and bell tower with one bell. Fr. Andrzej Pechenius, who, in 1668-1679, was the priest of the parish of Olesno, including Stare Olesno, was involved in its construction. The priest was also the patron of the extension to the Church of St. Anne in Olesno, which was extended by chapels in 1688; hence, there is a mention of the participation of the authors of the chapels, Marcin Snopek, also in the work on this church. The independent parish was established in 1911; the first parish priest was Fr. Franciszek Marx.

The church was dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, and temporarily to St. Wenceslaus. In spite of this, until 1911 the main altar featured a painting of the Virgin Mary with Child, which was donated to the Diocesan Museum in Opole in 1987. The church underwent multiple renovations in 1879, 1955-1957, 1959, and 2001-2006, among others.

Description

The church is located at a distance from the village buildings, on the south side of national road no. 11. It is oriented towards the east and surrounded by a cemetery. It was built as a log structure reinforced with clamps, on a stone foundation, with a tower featuring a post-and-beam structure with side stiffeners.

The church consists of a rectangular nave and a chancel in the shape similar to a square, with a sacristy adjoining the northern wall along its entire length. At the sides of the tower, there are newer rectangular annexes. The nave and the lower chancel are covered with gable roofs, with triangular gables. The one-storey sacristy and two-storey annexes at the tower are topped with mono-pitched roofs. The tower consists of five storeys and an overhanging bell chamber, and is covered with an eight-plane roof. At the eastern edge of the nave, there is a six-sided steeple turret. Most of the windows are topped with semicircular arches; the windows in the annexes and sacristy are rectangular, and the windows in the belfry and main entrance doors have the shape of a quatrefoil and a square overlapping each other, similar to the shape of the windows in the chapels of the Church of St. Anne in Olesno. The windows openings are enclosed in massive beamed frames, with a lintel carved out in the shape of an ogee arch, or rectangular frames. The roofs and façades of the church are covered with wood shingles; the façades of the tower and its annexes are covered with vertically positioned weatherboards with trimming strips. The lower edge of the weatherboard cladding is cut out in a decorative pattern.

Inside, the nave is topped with false barrel vaults with straight ceiling sections, covered with murals depicting the Holy Trinity. The ceiling over the nave is beamed with crossbars, with square fields decorated with floral and geometric ornaments. The ornaments are also around the window openings and on the balustrade of the straight music choir supported by two pillars. The rood with truncated upper corners is partially obscured by vertical boards cut out in a lace pattern. The floor in the church is made of stone, black and white panels.

The architectural main altar and side altars were designed in neo-Gothic style; the baptismal font, tabernacle and painting of St. Mary Magdalene in the main altar were made after 1911.

The structure can be viewed from the outside; the interior is open to visitors during services or by arrangement with the parish priest.

compiled by Ewa Kalbarczyk-Klak, Regional Branch of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Opole, 25-09-2014.

Bibliography

• Katalog zabytków sztuki w Polsce, vol. VII, issue 10, T. Chrzanowski and M. Kornecki (eds.), pp. 26-27.
• Lutsch Hans, Verzeichnis der Kunstdenkmäler der Provinz Schlesien, Bd. 4: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Reg.-Bezirks Oppeln, Tl. 2, Breslau 1894, 444 pp. 255-256.
• Dienwiebel H., Oberschlesische Schrottholzkirchen, Breslau 1938.
• Stanoszek P., Ksiądz Franciszek Józef Marx - pierwszy proboszcz w Starym Oleśnie 1911-1921, Opole 2005.
• Stanoszek P., Historia parafii Stare Olesno 1911-2011, Kluczbork 2012.