A wooden church from 1696 in the cemetery in Woźniki, with an altar of St Valentine, a Renaissance pulpit and the grave of Józef Lompa nearby.
The wooden Church of St Valentine stands on Tarnogórska Street in Woźniki, in the middle of a cemetery. It belongs to the Wooden Architecture Trail of the Silesian Voivodeship, and the present building dates from 1696.
A wooden church in Woźniki is known from a mention in 1490. In 1696 a new one was built on the site of an earlier church, funded by the townspeople of Woźniki. After a brick church was built by the market square, the wooden one became a chapel, and in 1702 a porch was added to it.
After the fire of the town in 1789 it served as the parish church until 1813, and then as a cemetery church. In 1901 Oskar Kowalewski decorated the interior with polychrome paintings with ornamental and figural motifs, and the altar of St Valentine was replaced at the same time. Since the early 21st century renovation and conservation work has been carried out here: replacing the roof shingles and the floor, and restoring the polychromes and the altar.
The church is oriented and built in log construction, on a rectangular plan closed on three sides, without a separate chancel. A small sacristy adjoins the nave on the north-east, and a porch on the west.
On the west side, by the gable of the nave, rises a slender octagonal turret with a lantern and a bulbous cap. The roof is shingled and gabled, and the interior is covered with a flat ceiling. Inside are preserved the altar of St Valentine from around 1901 and a Renaissance pulpit with papier-mâché decoration.
The church is surrounded by a cemetery, and nearby is the grave of Fr Józef Lompa, an Upper Silesian poet and teacher. The church belongs to the local parish of St Catherine of Alexandria, whose main Church of St Catherine in Woźniki stands in the town, about a kilometre from here.
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