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Parish church of St Nicholas - Zabytek.pl

Parish church of St Nicholas


church Ujście

Address
Ujście

Location
woj. wielkopolskie, pow. pilski, gm. Ujście - miasto

Ujście is a well-known Calvary in Greater Poland (Sanctuary of the Shedding of the Most Precious Blood of Christ).

The complex was created in the years 1891-1908, at the discretion of the then parish priest, Franciszek Renkawitz. At the end of the partitions of Poland and during the interwar period, the Calvary played an important role in sustaining the faith and the Polish identity. The Stations, destroyed by the occupying forces during the period of occupation, have been reconstructed. The neo-Baroque church of St Nicholas is an interesting example of historicising sacred architecture from the early 20th century. The church was erected according to a design of architect Oskar Siede from Berlin. The graveyard surrounding the church is the oldest burial ground in Ujście.

History

Ujście used to be the location of one of the more important hill forts of the Pomorze-Greater Poland borderland - the hill fort was mentioned in 1108 in the Chronicles by Gallus Anonymus. The hill fort and the surrounding settlement were situated at an important route connecting Poznań and Gniezno with towns of northern Greater Poland as well as with Białogard and Kołobrzeg, near a crossing point at the Noteć River. With time, a trade settlement grew up in the vicinity of the hill fort. In 1413, it was granted municipal rights by King Władysław II Jagiełło. Ujście was a royal town, one of the more important urban settlements in Greater Poland.

The origins of the parish in Ujście likely date back to the 12th century. The earliest known mentions of the church come from 1428 and 1462. At the time, the wooden church of St Nicholas was in place, situated to the north of the market square. In 1510, in the place of the former church, a new, also wooden church was erected. The building was destroyed in 1637 during the great fire of the town. Soon after, a new church was built, the first mentions of which date back to as early as 1641. In 1655, this building was also destroyed by a fire. Eleven years later, in 1666, owing to the efforts of the then parish priest, Krystian Streych, a new wattle-and-daub church was erected. From 1890, the parish was administered by priest Franciszek Renkawitz. Due to the fact that the existing church was too small to accommodate the faithful, a decision was made in 1896 to construct a new building. The plans were created by a Berlin architect Oskar Siede. The construction took place in the years 1905-1907. On 2 September 1907, Poznań Archbishop Edward Likowski consecrated the newly erected building. Priest Renkawitz was also the initiator of the construction of the Calvary in Ujście. The creation thereof was a consequence of the need to sustain the national identity and faith among the people living in the area. In the years 1893-1908, 14 Stations of the Cross, a Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, a Chapel of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a Gethsemane and a Belle Vue castle were erected on a nearby hill.

During the Nazi occupation, the church was looted and closed; at the end of the war, it served as a military storehouse. In the years 1942-1943, the Calvary chapels were destroyed; the debris was used to pave the alleyways of the Park of Liberty, which was created where the Calvary used to be. Since the end of World War II, the church has been renovated several times, e.g. in 1964 and 1968. Efforts were constantly made to reconstruct the Calvary; however, these were opposed by the state authorities. In 1966, symbolic wooden crosses were set in the place of the destroyed chapels, and a chapel of the Sacred Heart of Christ was built on the ruins of the Belle Vue castle. In 1976, after many years of efforts of parish priest Florian Łodziga, fourteen figural Stations of the Cross were placed on a hillside by the church, despite the lack of consent of the authorities. The concrete sculptures were created by Jerzy Sobociński. Still, the efforts to reconstruct the historical Calvary did not cease. A decision thereon was made in 1997. The designs of individual chapels and additional facilities were created by sculptor Robert Sobociński and architect Jerzy Suchanek. The reconstruction began in 1998. Four chapels have been completed thus far.

Description

The church complex is situated in the centre of Ujście, to the south of the Market Square. The complex is dominated by the church of St Nicholas. The chancel of the church faces south-east. An old graveyard surrounds the church, and the brick stairs there lead to the steep hill where the chapels of the Calvary are located. The complex is surrounded with a metal fence mounted on a plastered wall.

The neo-Baroque church of St Nicholas is a three-nave basilica with a transept and a single-bay chancel terminating in a semi-hexagon on the south-eastern side. In the corners between the walls of the chancel and the transept, one can find a rectangular chapel of the Sacred Heart of Christ, terminating in a semi-circular apse, and a rectangular sacristy. At the ends of the side naves on the north-western side, there are two square towers. The church is covered with tall gable roofs, while the apse of the chancel features a three-pitched roof. The entire structure is dominated by tall, three-storey towers crowned with bulbous domes with openings.

The church is a brick building positioned on a stone plinth. Its walls are covered with plaster. The roofs are covered with ceramic tiles, and the tower cupolas are covered with sheet metal. Inside, there are brick vaults.

The façades are framed by rusticated corner pilasters and crowned with profiled cornices. The windows, framed by surrounds, are of diverse shape, mainly rectangular or topped with a semi-circular arch. The five-axis façade is flanked by a pair of towers. Its middle section, partitioned by pilasters, is topped with a tall gable. The bottom storey features three entrances topped with semi-circular arches and framed by rustication, above - three large rectangular windows. The gable is framed by volutes and crowned with a stepped convex-concave jerkin head. The central niche features a stone sculpture of the patron of the church - St Nicholas.

Inside, the walls are partitioned by pilasters which support the crowning cornice. The chancel, the arms of the transept, and the narrow side naves open up towards the main nave in a series of semi-circular arches. The entire church is covered with semi-elliptical barrel vaults with lunettes, adorned with painted decorations. A music gallery is embedded in the last south-western bay of the body, resting on three arcades with with semi-circular top sections, with a frame-and-panel parapet adorned with stucco decorations, which is supported by sculptures of angels.

Church fittings include the Baroque side altars, the pulpit and the baptismal font from the previous church, as well as a neo-Baroque main altar with a painting of St Nicholas and sculptures of the four Evangelists. The windows of the chancel contain surviving figural stained glass depicting St Stanislaus and St Otto of Bamberg who visited Ujście on his way back from the mission in Pomerania in 1124.

The graveyard surrounding the church is the oldest burial ground in Ujście.

The Calvary Park “Kalwaria Ujska” is a dominant feature of the landscape. The greenery of the park boasts significant natural values (old-growth trees, monumental trees). On a small area of land on the slope of a steep hill, by the winding paths, 14 Stations of the Cross, a Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, a Chapel of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a Gethsemane and a Belle Vue castle were erected. Stone stairs led to the Calvary from the side of the church. The chapel of the first Station, “Jesus is condemned to death”, was built in the neo-Gothic style in 1893. The second station - “Jesus takes up His cross” with classical features - was created in 1896. In subsequent years, the remaining chapels were built: Station Three - “Jesus falls for the first time”, in the form of a medieval ruin; Station Four - “Jesus meets his Mother”, reminiscent of Byzantine architecture; Station Five - “Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus to carry His cross”, constituting a fanciful cave of sorts; Station Six - “Veronica wipes the face of Jesus”, in the form of an octagonal church in the style of Classicism; Station Seven - “Jesus falls for the second time”, reminiscent of a late-Renaissance baptistery; Station Eight - “Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem”, with neo-Romanesque features; Station Nine - “Jesus falls for the third time”, with oriental features; Station Ten - “Jesus is stripped of His garments”, in the form of a stone grotto; Station Eleven from 1908 - “Jesus is nailed to the cross”; Station Twelve, standing at the top of the hill - “Jesus dies on the cross”, in a form reminiscent of medieval barbicans; Chapel Thirteen - “Jesus is taken down from the Cross and given to his Mother”, as a castle ruin, and Chapel Fourteen - “Jesus is laid in the tomb”, as well as the Chapel of the Sacred Heart of Christ in the form of a fortified tower in the neo-Romanesque style, and the Gethsemane - a cleft in the rocks with two caves. The last part of the complex was the Belle Vue castle which offered a magnificent view of the Ujście region. The layout of the greenery differed from other Calvary complexes. Due to the small size of the hill, the greenery was arranged in a park layout (plantings along both sides of the paths, groups of tall greenery). Since 1998, the reconstruction of the chapels which were destroyed during the war has been under way. In connection with the appearance of the church hill having changed (tree expansion, among other things), the scale of the designed buildings was changed (their size was decreased at least by half), but their forms are reminiscent of the no-longer-existing facilities. In 1998, Chapel II was consecrated. In 1999, Chapels I and X were built. In September 2000, the works on Chapel XIII were completed. A sculpture of Resurrected Christ was placed by the entrance to the Calvary, with plans to place it by Chapel XIV in the future.

The sanctuary is accessible to visitors. More information on the sanctuary and the Holy Mass schedule can be found at the websites of the Ujście parish and the Gniezno archdiocese www.parafia.za.pl and www.archidiecezja.pl

compield by Krzysztof Jodłowski, Regional Branch of the National Heritage Board of Poland in Poznan, 06-08-2014.

Bibliography

  • Bykowski J., Kalwaria ujska, Poznań 1910
  • Katalog zabytków sztuki w Polsce, t. V, z. 1: powiat chodzieski, Warszawa 1965, s. 9-10.
  • Rybarczyk M., Symbol miasta: Góra Męki Pańskiej, [w:] Ujście przez wieki : szkice z historii miasta, Ujście 2013, s. 117-146.
  • Sobocińska A., Kalwaria w Ujściu, „Kronika Wielkopolski”, 2000, nr 1 (93), s. 80-92.
  • Ujście : stadium historyczno-urbanistyczne, oprac. Dorota Leśniewska i Krzysztof Jodłowski, Ujście; Poznań 2005 [mpis NID-OT Poznań].
  • Wiedera A., Odbudowa Kalwarii w Ujściu, „Kronika Wielkopolski”, 2004, nr 1 (109), s. 165-168.
  • Wiedera A., Z historii Ujścia - dzieje kościoła parafialnego, „Ujskie sprawy”, 1991, nr 24.

Category: church

Architecture: Neo-Baroque

Building material:  brick

Protection: Register of monuments, Monuments records

Inspire id: PL.1.9.ZIPOZ.NID_N_30_BK.164737, PL.1.9.ZIPOZ.NID_E_30_BK.67320