History

The first known mention of a tserkva in Tyniowice dates back to 1515. The current tserkva was most likely erected in 1709, although other sources indicate year 1700 as the date of its construction. There is some laconic information on renovation works dating back to years 1779 and 1817. At an unspecified date (about 1918, although that is not certain) the wood shingles on the building’s roofs were replaced with metal sheeting. After 1947, the tserkva served as a the Roman Catholic Church of St Anthony. Renovation works were performed in the 1970s, in the course of which the upper sections of the roof above the nave were modified so as to accommodate a steeple (the original roof was a two-tier tented roof, with slightly concave surfacing of the lower section contrasting with the convex surfaces of the upper tier; the lower tier formed a kind of canopy with pronounced eaves). Inside the church, both the walls and the ceilings were covered with wooden boards. The wooden, free-standing belfry, mentioned in documents dating from year 1817, was also dismantled at that time. From 1985 onwards, the tserkva has remained abandoned.

Description

The tserkva, oriented towards the east, is located in the centre of the village, about 300 metres to the east from the Pruchnik-Jarosław road, on a small hill, where it stands surrounded by old trees. The area around the tserkva is marked by a wire fence, with a gate in its northern section. A single-storey brick building stands in the south-western part of the area around the tserkva.

The tserkva itself is a small, tripartite structure consisting of an octagonal nave and a much smaller, three-sided chancel abutting the nave from the east as well as a square narthex in the west, similar in size to the chancel.

It is an accretive structure, dominated by an octagonal nave with an eight-faced tented roof crowned with a steeple. The walls of the chancel and narthex are similar in height and are much lower than the walls of the nave. The chancel features a five-faced roof with a roof ridge situated slightly above the eaves of the roof of the nave. A small bulbous dome shaped like a poppy head is perched atop the roof ridge where the surfaces of the roof meet. The narthex is covered by a six-faced roof, its ridge positioned at the level of the eaves of the roof above the nave. All roofs are covered with sheet metal which was installed in lieu of the original wood shingle cladding.

The tserkva is a wooden structure set on a stone foundation; it is made of wooden logs covered by vertical board and batten siding. The building features two windows in the southern wall of the nave and one in its northern wall as well as two windows in the chancel walls (one in the southern wall and one in the northern wall), the latter two being much smaller than the nave windows. All windows are rectangular in shape. In addition, there is another window in the eastern chancel wall which has subsequently been boarded up.

Inside, the passage from the narthex to the nave opens up towards the nave across the entire width and height of the narthex. The entire interior features wooden wall panelling. The ceiling above the nave is flat, while the narthex features faux segmental vaulting. The ceiling above the chancel features a lowered section running around the circumference of the chancel. Some of the original fittings of the tserkva are now kept at the Tserkva Art Department of the Łańcut Castle Museum.

The building is accessible all year round but may only be viewed from the outside.

Compiled by Ryszard Kwolek, Regional Branch of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Rzeszów, 15.09.2014.

Bibliography

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