History

The chapel was erected in the years 1766-1767, based on a design by Josef Horsch, with the funds being provided by the Zamoyski family, the erstwhile owners of the town of Kraśnik and the nearby village of Stróża. The chapel was designed as the filial church for the parish in Kraśnik. When the ecclesiastical authorities allowed for the church to take on parish rights, in 1955 the building underwent renovation and partial adaptation in order to serve its new purpose. To this end, a low annex was added to the front façade in order to accommodate a larger number of people; it was also then that the roof shape was altered, with the original trapezium-shaped planes being replaced by triangular ones, with a tapering ridge. Following the construction of a new church in the 1980s in the immediate vicinity of the structure, the old building has taken on the role of a cemetery chapel. Following the year 1990, the annex was torn down, while in 2011 a series of comprehensive renovation works was carried out, including the reconstruction of the roof in its original, tiled form.

Description

The chapel is located between the edge of a tall escarpment of the Wyżnica river valley (currently incorporating a number of ponds) and the former road from Kraśnik to Janów which is now located a few dozen metres north of the current route, with an access path leading straight towards the chapel. The chancel of the building faces the south-west. The chapel is surrounded by trees which grow on the site of the former burial ground, standing in the vicinity of the existing cemetery.

The chapel is a brick building with plaster-covered walls, featuring sail vaults and a barrel vault with lunettes; designed on an equilateral triangle floor plan, the building features a small, square porch positioned on the axis of the front façade. The interior is divided into four sections and features a small, triangular sacristy in the western corner, separated by a partition wall, a short, trapezium-shaped chancel marked by a tall rood arch and a short, wide nave terminating with the semi-oval wall of the arcaded pipe organ gallery. The two-storey, three-bay pipe organ gallery section with a porch located directly beneath the gallery itself occupies the widest section of the triangle. A round staircase leading up into the gallery is located in the southern corner of the outermost bay. Two stacked arches of the middle bay feature basket-handle arches, opening up into the nave, while the curved sections of the walls on the sides feature pairs of smaller, semicircular arches.

The front façade is preceded by a small porch with pilasters accentuating its rounded corners, crowned with a triangular pediment. The porch features a gable roof clad with roof tiles. The front façade and the other two façades are accentuated by a flat, mitred plinth upon which rise Tuscan giant order pilasters which adorn the rounded corners of the structure. The front façade follows a three-axial design, with a window on the centre axis flanked by a pair of shallow, semi-domical niches. The gable takes the form of a two-dimensional aedicula flanked by pilasters, crowned with a triangular pediment and flanked by volute-shaped fractables, with the entire arrangement perched atop a parapet wall adorned with decorative panels and a blind balustrade stretching across the intercolumniation, designed to resemble a chain with upright links. The side façades follow a four-axial design and are accentuated by pilasters, with dual pilasters being positioned along the front façade wall. The narrow intercolumniations incorporate slender windows on the lower level and blind windows on the upper level, framed by joint surrounds with decorative label stops. The gable roof with tapering planes is clad with roof tiles.

The church may be admired from the outside.

compiled by Roman Zwierzchowski, Regional Branch of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Lublin, 14-11-2014.