Catholic church of St. Apostles Philip and Jacob, Sękowa (UNESCO list)
St. Philip’s and St. James’ church in Sękowa was built around 1520, when King Zygmunt I the Old of the powerful Jagiellonian dynasty ruled Poland. Despite later reconstructions and renovations, the church remains an excellent example of the masterly skills and flawless sense of beauty possessed by the craftsmen of bygone times. The huge expanses of the steep roof, the squat tower and ornate interior decoration have brought delight to some of Poland’s greatest artists like Józef Mehoffer and Stanisław Wyspiański, to name but two.
During the First World War, this prized building miraculously escaped total destruction. Sękowa found itself on the front line, falling into the hands of the Russians and then the Austro-Hungarians. Fighting even took place inside the place of worship, not only profaning it, but almost completely destroying it, as well. After the war, the church was restored to the form it had obtained in the eighteenth century. The church is oriented in accordance with ancient Christian tradition. This means that the chancel, in other words, the area where the high altar is located, faces to the east, where the Saviour will appear again at the end of the world.
Adjoining the chancel to the north is the sacristy. That’s where the priest prepares to celebrate Holy Mass. The largest area in the church is the nave, which is where the congregation assembles. The chancel arch connects the nave and chancel. Finally, to the west, is the vestibule, with the tower rising above it. The walls of the chancel and nave were built using wooden beams stacked one on top of the other and joined at the corners by notches forming tightly closed joints. The construction is reminiscent of log cabins and houses. The tower, on the other hand, was built with vertical posts and horizontal beams, in a post-and-frame construction.
Following the damage wrought by war more than a century ago, the interior of the church is quite modest. However, there are still some noteworthy historical elements of the fixtures and fittings, such as the door frames, for instance. The vestiges of the frescos, the stone baptismal font and the seventeenth-century altarpiece at the high altar are also of great value. The paintings depicting the Way of the Cross are another interesting historical element. They date from the eighteenth century. Inscriptions in Old Polish are visible beneath the scenes portraying the Passion of Christ. The church was entered onto the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2003.
Application – a virtual walk around the church
The church, which is around thirty metres tall, is set on a stone foundation. It was built of larch logs joined together without the use of nails and it is clad in shingles … in other words, small, thin, tapering pieces of wood that are laid out to overlap one another. It has a high, gabled roof and it’s surrounded by wide arcades resting on pillars. In Polish, arcades of this kind are known as ‘Saturdays’. The four-sided tower has a domed cupola with a slender roof lantern … in other words, a cylindrical section that crowns the tower. It features a number of openings. Natural light streams through them, illuminating the interior. In the middle of the roof, there’s a bell tower.
The interior is simplicity incarnate. The oldest and most prized surviving elements are the portal, the figures in the Crucifixion scene, the baptismal font, the altarpiece at the high altar and the wall paintings in the chancel. The portal is the decoration framing the main door. A number of its features are typical of the Gothic style. A carved-out, rope-like pattern runs right round the inner edge of the entire embrasure as if it were encircling it. The upper edge of the door opening follows the line of two serpentine elements that come together at the top in a point, forming what’s known as an ogee arch. In the corners to either side of the serpentine lines, there’s a decorative motif known as a palmette, in other words, a fan-shaped palm leaf.
A carved wooden crucifix is affixed to the horizontal beam of the rood screen. The grey-white stone baptismal font stands further off in the nave, by the southern wall. Slender in form, it resembles a Gothic chalice. The diameter at the bottom of its hexagonal base is the same as the diameter of the bowl … around fifty centimetres. The base narrows towards the top and there’s a two-tiered, horizontal ring known as a nodus closer to the bowl. The bowl itself is octagonal, with straight sides. On the outside, they’re decorated with single lilies carved in relief, their calyxes facing downwards.
At the high altar, the orange altarpiece, which almost reaches the ceiling, is richly gilded and decorated with a series of bas-relief plant motifs in the form of dense branches that twine around the columns between the paintings and the moulding at the top. The painting on the central panel has a semi-circular finial. The carved wooden figures on the panels to either side are slender and colourfully painted. The walls of the chancel feature painted figures of the Evangelists. They’re depicted standing on plinths that look convincingly like the real architectural thing! But, in fact, they’re examples of trompe-l’œil … an artistic technique that creates an illusion whereby two-dimensional images look as if they’re actually three-dimensional.
