St Michael the Archangel's Church in Krzyżowice

The late Baroque Church of St Michael the Archangel stands in Krzyżowice in Pawłowice municipality. The brick church was built in 1793-1799 and entered in the heritage register in 1965.

From wooden to brick

The first church was wooden; records from 1628 say it was built at the end of the 13th century. During the Reformation, for about a hundred years, the building and the village were in Protestant hands, and the Thirty Years' War damaged it badly. Around 1663 it was rebuilt, and the brick church was funded by Father Ignacy Skrzyszowski. It was blessed on 20 October 1799 by Dean Feliks Reisner of Rybnik. The tower was added roughly a quarter of a century later, and the sacristy in 1862.

The structure and the bells

The church is 29.66 m long, 13 m wide and 16.66 m high, and its tower reaches 50 m. On the tower hang bells cast in 1881 from the remelting of earlier ones: “Regina coeli” and “Ave Maria”, formerly from 1552 and 1562.

Interior

The transverse arches of the vault and the walls are decorated with stucco. The church has a stone font, a pulpit from 1880 and a painting of Our Lady of Krzyżowice from the early 16th century. The painting of St Michael the Archangel was painted around 1892 by the Czech painter Jan Bocheczek, and the wooden figure of St John of Nepomuk is a Baroque folk sculpture from the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. The stained glass in the chancel with the archangels Raphael and Gabriel was donated in 1958. During the Second World War German troops mined the church, but the explosion did not take place.

Practical information

• Address: ul. Tadeusza Kościuszki 42, Krzyżowice.
• An active parish church; information on the parish website parafiakrzyzowice.pl.