History

The church of St Anne existing today was built at the turn of the 15th and 16th century. In 1245, the village of Ochędzyn was an endowment of the Cistercian sisters in Łubince. In 1250, Przemysł I of Greater Poland issued a charter for the village based on the German law. According to source documents, the chapel in Ochędzyn existed already in 1492 and belonged to the parish of Sokolinki. The church was one of the earliest monuments of the renewal of the cult of St Anne in Poland. The official dedication to St Anne and a description of the church can be found in the protocol from the bishop's inspection in 1720: filial church of the parish in Sokolniki; church of St Anne, wooden, with a sacristy, covered by wood shingles, floors made of boards. At that time, there were 3 altars in the church: of St Anne, St Joseph, and St Nicholas. The main body of the church received its shape at the turn of the 15th and 16th century, and was renovated many times in the 18th century. Probably during the works carried out in the years 1780-97, the choir was built. The parish in Ochędzynów was officially established on 12.06.1922 by Bishop of Wrocław Stanisław Zdzitowiecki. In 1925, the main body of the church was enlarged, and a porch was added from the south. In 1945, the church's interior was painted, and gaps in wood shingles were filled.

Description

The church is situated in the central part of the village, in the middle of a square delimited by a brick fence with wooden spans, surrounded by a ring of trees. Within the western edge of the fence, there is a gatehouse bell tower. The church is an oriented, wooden structure classified to 16th-century churches of Wieluń type, Greater Poland variety. The late-Gothic church is comprised of a nave built on an elongated rectangular floor plan (extended from the western side in 1925), a narrower chancel terminating in a semi-hexagon (the chancel slightly deviates to the north from the axis of the church), a rectangular sacristy adjoining the chancel from the north, and two porches built at a later time (approx. in 1925) - the southern one, built on a square floor plan, and the western one - built on a rectangular floor plan. The compact body of the church is comprised of two cuboids covered by a common, one-ridge gable roof passing into a three-pitched roof over the polygonal terminal of the chancel, with wide eaves. From the west, the roof of the body is limited by a triangular gable receded in relation to the wall face, with a massive skirt roof at the base. On the roof ridge, there is a 17th-century steeple turret. The sacristy is covered by a mono-pitched roof which is an extension of the northern slope of the chancel's roof. The walls of the late-Gothic church (chancel and the eastern part of the nave) taper upwards, they are supported by a log structure, with logs joined in the corners with dovetail joints. The western part of the nave body, which was built later, rests on a frame structure. In the place where two sections of the nave adjoin one another, the wall structure was reinforced by vertical supports. The church rests on a brick foundation, it has weatherboards inside and outside; the roofs are laid with wood shingles, and its flat ceilings are made of wooden beams. The façades are covered with vertical weatherboards with batten siding, and partitioned with vertical supports and small rectangular window openings (originally present only in the southern side). On the axis of the front façade, there us a porch with the main entrance. The porch was added to the church at a later time. The interior is comprised of one nave and a narrower chancel, and it is covered by a flat ceiling - at one level in the whole church. Between the chancel and the nave, there is a rectangular rood opening with a beam chamfered on both sides. By the western wall of the nave, there is a choir whose 18th-century Baroque form was significantly modified. The only elements preserved are decorative pillars with shafts with chamfered edges, bulging out in the centre and topped with a cuboid impost with dentils. Originally, the walls of the church were plastered and covered with decorative foliage paintings. On the ceilings, there was a presentation of the Heart of Christ. Currently, the church's interior is covered with horizontal weatherboards. Among the interior fittings worth particular attention, there are: sculptures of St Anne, St Barbara, and St Catherine, incorporated in the Mannerist 18th-century main altar.

The building is accessible all year round; interior tours upon prior arrangement with the parish administrator.

compiled by Elżbieta Cieślak, Regional Branch of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Łódź, 15.12.2014.

Bibliography

• Katalog kościołów i duchowieństwa Diecezji Częstochowskiej, Częstochowa 1978, s. 526-527.
• Katalog Zabytków Sztuki w Polsce, t. II województwo łódzkie., z. 12 Powiat Wieluński, Warszawa 1953, s. 373.
• Ryszard Brykowski, Grażyna Ruszczyk, Inwentarz drewnianej architektury sakralnej w Polsce, Zeszyt 4b kościoły w Wielkopolsce, Warszawa 1993, s. 89-98.
• Ryszard Rosin, Słownik historyczno-geograficzny ziemi wieluńskiej w średniowieczu, Warszawa 1963, s. 124.