It is one of the earliest examples of sacral architecture from the period of mature historicism, which drew on the traditions of medieval architecture.

History

The parish in Krośniewice was founded in the second half of the 14th century. The first evidence of its existence can be found in court books from 1388, which mention a parson from Krośniewice. The first parish church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was wooden and was probably built in 1453. It burned down in the 17th century. In 1692, it was replaced with another wooden church. However, it soon became too small for the growing congregation and, as stated in a newspaper (...), could not satisfy the spiritual needs of the parishioners. The heir of the town and the village, where most of the parishioners lived, Aleksander Rembieliński and his wife Pelagia from the family of Zamoyski Counts together with the parishioners decided to build a new temple that would satisfy the spiritual needs of the parish. (based on: http://parafiakrosniewice.pl)

In 1866, the foundation stone of the new temple was consecrated. The church was erected on the basis of a design created by the Warsaw architect Franciszek Tournell. He was one of the first architects to seek inspiration in the solutions and motifs used by the local architecture. The building was built in Gothic Revival style, with plastered elevations and filigree details.

The building was made available for use in 1872, together with the tell tower and the fence. It was consecrated on 6 October 1878 by the bishop of Kujawy and Kalisz, Wincenty Teofil Popiel. A press article from that time says that (…) a new temple was built from fired bricks, with pointed arches and one tower adorned with well-shaped corners at the top. The great altar contains a beautiful painting depicting the Crucifixion of the Saviour, a gift from Count Charles Zamoyski. Other noteworthy items include two paintings by Italian artists, placed in the chancel. There are also two beautiful stained glass windows in the chancel, one of which depicts the Escape to Egypt and the others presents the Annunciation to the Holy Mother of God. 

The press article describing the church in Krośniewice comes from 1887.

During the Second World War, the church was destroyed. Initially used as a grain store, it was damaged by a bomb in 1945. The bomb destroyed the tower, the vault over the chancel and the roof and smashed the windows and stained glass windows. The pews, vestments and liturgical vessels were destroyed too.

The church was rebuilt in the 1950s with funds donated by the parishioners. After 2000, the elevations were subjected to conservation treatment.

Description

The church is situated in the central part of the town, in the southern frontage of the market square. It stands in the middle of a fenced area. It represents the Gothic Revival style. The church follows the floor plan of the Latin cross, with the chancel equal in width to the nave and terminated semi-hexagonally. On each side of the chancel, there is a two-storey sacristy built on a floor plan of a narrow rectangle. The eastern sacristy is adjoined by a church porch on a square-like plan. The church has one nave. Another major component of the church is the western porch, equal in width to the nave and divided into three bays. The body of the church consists of several separately roofed structures: the nave, lower chancel, transept arms are covered with gable roofs, eastern and western sacristies have gable roofs. There is also a high tower with a multi-hipped roof, rising above the entrance in the northern elevation.

The church is positioned along the north-south axis.

It was built from ceramic bricks and field stones, coated with plaster. The church tower is made of brick too. It has a wooden ceiling, made from planks based on beams. Inside the church, there are brick-and-plaster walls, as well as wooden walls, painted with oil paint, and wooden skeleton walls with glazed sections.

The building is partly cellared. In the cellar under the nave, there is a boiler room.

The cellar is covered with a steel beam ceiling. All roofs are wooden, of a rafter and queen post structure, with elongated raking shores.

The roofs are clad with overlapping zinc sheets.

In the cellar, there is a concrete screed floor. On the ground floor in the church porch, nave, transept, chancel and the sacristy, the floors are made from ceramic tiles of two sizes. In the choir gallery and in the tower, there are plank floors. The stairs have concrete landings.

There are brick-and-plaster stairs leading to the cellar and wooden winder stairs leading to the choir gallery, as well as in the sacristies. Access to the tower is provided via ladder-type stairs.

Rectangular door and window openings have pointed-arch tops and brick lintels.

The wooden doors are frame-panelled. The front, frame-panelled door has two wings and a pointed-arch transom light. The side doors to the church porch and the sacristy are panelled and one-wing. In the church, there are also one- and two-wing doors with ornamental frames and transom lights with crystal glass panes.

In the sacristy, there are wooden, jambed, two-wing windows. The other windows in the nave, porch, transept, chancel and in the upper parts of the sacristy are glazed with stained glass and have steel and lead frames.

The church porch has a three-bay transverse layout. At the chancel, there are two sacristies equal in width to the nave. They are two-storey, with stairs in the corners.

The principal block of the church is covered with a high gable roof. The front is topped with an attic wall. On the axis, there is a tower. The transept is lower than the nave, with an attic and a gable roof. The chancel is lower than the nave and the transept and has a flat tented roof. The sacristies are likewise lower than the chancel and have gable, corner roofs.

The building is buttressed – the buttresses support the corners and there are also two buttresses at the eastern elevation and another two at the western elevation, placed between the windows.

The northern front elevation is set on a low plinth. It is divided into two storeys by a cordon cornice. In the finial, there is a two-storey tower, positioned on the axis of the elevation. The elevation is flanked by corner, octagonal pilasters, topped with pinnacles, which have conical roofs, each surmounted by an openwork, metal cross.

In the lower part, there is a three-axial wall. The axes are separated by pilaster strips extending to the cordon cornice. The central axis is accented by a tall, rectangular door opening placed in a splayed, pointed arch niche. The two-wing door is topped with a stained glass transom light. The portal is formed by pilaster strips, on which rectangular decorative panels are arranged. They are crowned with small aedicules. The extreme axes of the ground floor are accented by the high, rectangular window openings, each topped with a pointed arch, embedded in splayed niches too. The windows are glazed with stained glass. Above them, there is a narrow window cornice highlighting the pointed arches of the windows. A rosette is positioned centrally above the string course. It is enclosed with a pointed-arch frame resting on the cornice. The arch is surmounted by a cross on a pedestal. The wall is crowned with a stepped attic, which matches the slope of the roof.

On the axis of the elevation, there is a two-storey tower. In the lower part, there is a clock in a round, profiled surround, placed against the background of a smoothly plastered wall. Above, there is the plinth of the upper part of the tower. Further above, there is a smoothly plastered wall with a single window opening, topped with a full arch and surrounded by a profiled frame. From the middle of the height, the corners of the wall are supported by octagonal pilasters. Their top parts are similar to those on the pilasters flanking the elevation. The tower is covered with a pyramidal roof surmounted by a sphere with a cross.

The eastern and western elevations of the nave, transepts and chancel are articulated in a similar way. They are set on a low foundation topped with a cornice. Above, the walls are covered with smooth plasterwork. All corners are buttressed. Two additional buttresses support the wall of the nave. All the window and door openings are rectangular, topped with a pointed arch and embedded in splayed niches. The elevation of the nave contains three openings. There are also five single windows arranged in the walls terminating the chancel and two windows in the gable walls of the transept. All the walls are topped with a profiled under-eaves cornice. The finial of the gable walls of the transept is similar to that of the church façade and has the form of a stepped attic wall.

The southern gable wall of the nave is covered with smooth plasterwork. Over it, on the roof ridge, there is a steeple in the form of an aedicula surmounted by a cross.

The church was renovated inside in the 1950s. The highlight of the interior decoration is the wooden, richly carved balcony of the choir gallery, supported on corbels. The sacral fixtures and fittings represent the Gothic Revival style. The pipe organ casing is made of wood.

The windows of the temple are glazed with stained glass produced in the 1950s.

The church area is surrounded by a solid, brick fence. The gate leading to the church area is tripartite, with the central, two-wing part flanked by two wickets. The octagonal pillars supporting the gate match the pilasters in the corners of the front elevation of the church. Each of the wickets is placed in a rectangular frame topped with a pointed arch.

The bell tower stands in the north-eastern part of the church premises. It was erected on a square-like floor plan. The smoothly plastered walls are surrounded by a frame incorporating the corner pilasters. At the top of the walls, there is a serrated frieze. The area under the hip roof covering the bell tower is highlighted with a profiled cornice. In the western elevation, on the ground level, there is a rectangular, flat-headed entrance opening. Above, on the northern, western and southern walls, there are two high rectangular window openings topped with a full arch. Under one of them, an additional entrance opening was pierced in the southern wall. It is accessed via external metal stairs. From the east, the bell tower is adjoined by a single-storey annex.

The church is open to the public all year round. It can be toured outside service hours, upon prior arrangement by phone. http://parafiakrosniewice.pl

Compiled by Agnieszka Lorenc–Karczewska, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Łódź 14 April 2020

Bibliography

• Stefański K., Architektura XIX wieku na ziemiach polskich, Warszawa 2003, p. 144
• Stefański K., Polska architektura sakralna w poszukiwaniu stylu narodowego, Łódź 2000, p. 20
• Stefański K., Ludzie, którzy zbudowali Łódź. Leksykon architektów i budowniczych miasta. Łódź 2009
• http://www.ekrosniewice.pl/ press publications concerning the history of the church can be found on this website