A Gothic parish church with medieval wall paintings from the 15th century, discovered in 1962.
St Adalbert's Church in Łany Wielkie is a brick parish church in the Żarnowiec municipality, entered in the heritage register. From the outside it looks like a modest church altered by rebuilding, but inside it holds medieval wall paintings, which cover the walls and vault of the chancel and the walls of the nave.
The first mentions of the church date from 1257 and 1259, from documents of Duke Bolesław the Chaste and Bishop Prandota of Kraków. The church therefore existed earlier, although it is not known whether it was brick from the start. In the 14th or 15th century the chancel received a rib vault with a keystone bearing the Syrokomla coat of arms. Later the windows were enlarged, the chapel of St James was pulled down, and after 1782 the nave was extended with a timber structure.
The largest rebuilding took place in 1845-1850: the timber part of the nave was replaced with a brick one, and the Gothic vaults were partly removed. In 1889 a chapel and a new sacristy were built on the site of the former sacristy. This is why the Gothic features of the building are heavily obscured today.
The most valuable element is the medieval paintings, discovered in 1962 during preparations for painting the interior. Conservation was completed in 1966, and in 1969-1970 conservators corrected the infills. Further conservation work was carried out in 2004-2007. The paintings cover about 265 square metres.
They were made in two phases. The older, from about 1450, includes the Last Judgement in the apse, dominated by blue complemented with ochre, celadon and red. The younger, from 1470-1480, is richer and characterised by thick black outlines. It shows, among others, St George fighting the dragon, the Martyrdom of the Ten Thousand on Mount Ararat, Passion scenes, the Annunciation, the Ascension, the Martyrdom of St Erasmus and images of holy women. On the west wall, rebuilt in the mid-19th century, only fragments have survived.
The church is oriented and single-nave, with a chancel closed by a semicircular apse and a chapel of Our Lady of Częstochowa beside the nave. The body is covered with a gable roof with a small turret, and the façade is framed by pilasters and crowned with a triangular gable. The oldest element of the furnishings is a Gothic stone portal. The two side altars, of St Anthony and St Joseph, are Baroque. The main altar of 1907 replaced an earlier one from 1827 and surrounds a Baroque painting of Our Lady adoring the Child, and the Neo-Gothic organ dates from 1889.
Closest lies the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Żarnowiec, about three kilometres from here.
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