The rich interior decoration of the temple comes from different periods.

History of the structure

Mchy, a village located southeast of Śrem, is mentioned in 1510 as a town and a village. It gets its name from the lush moss in the surrounding woods. The parish was mentioned in 1403. Around 1530 three villages belonged to the parish: Mchy, Kołacin and Niedźwiady. The present parish church of St. Martin the Bishop and Confessor was erected in 1575-1616 from the foundation of Stanisław Sapiński, the owner of the village of Mchy. The church, consecrated in 1657, was partially plastered in ca. 1900. During World War II, from 1941-1945, the church was closed. The interior of the church was repainted in 1966 and the exterior was plastered in 1968.

Description of the structure

The church is situated on a small rise in the northern part of the village, on an oval plot of land occupied by the church cemetery. It is surrounded by a wall reinforced with buttresses, with a three-part gate from the mid- 19th century. In the middle, semicircular finial of the gate there is a brick epitaph plaque of Sebastian Bieńkowski, a Gniezno deputy pantler, who died in 1837. The metal hangings of the gate with the inscription “Secrum Millenium” 968-1968 were made in 1968.

The church is oriented, brick, plastered and single-nave. The nave has two bays, the chancel is of equal width, not separated, single-bay, closed with polygons. Next to the nave there is a square tower from 1615, with a porch on the ground floor. From the south, a porch from the 1st half of the 19th century, on the north side, a newer sacristy. There is a vaulted crypt under the chancel.

The exterior elevations are segmented with pilasters, topped with a frieze and a profiled crowning cornice. The frieze is decorated in the polygonal part of the chancel with band ornamentation. On the corners of the nave, tower and porch there is plaster imitating stone cladding. Semicircular windows with frames imitating quatrefoils. On the eastern side, in place of the window, there are two niches with similar frames: the upper one contains a statue of the Virgin Mary from the 17th century, the lower one a cartouche with the date 1643. The tower has six storeys of windows, supported at the corners by high recessed buttresses. The tower cupola is Baroque with a lantern, covered with copper sheet metal, which bears the Nowina coat of arms of the Sapiński family and the initials MS, and the Sulima coat of arms with the initials MP (HP?). The flag bears the date 1616. The half-gables of the nave on the western side with wavy volutes, divided by lesenes and topped with pinnacles. The porch is framed with pilasters and crowned with a semicircular gable. A gable roof clad with tiles.

The interior is covered with a barrel vault with lunettes, covered with early 17th century stucco decoration with motifs of laurel leaf rolls and medallions in the chancel and band and fittings ornamentation and cabochons in the nave. The chancel is distinguished by a semicircular rood arch, in its keystone there is a cartouche with the letters HP AO 1616. The choir gallery from the 1st half of the 19th century with a bulging balustrade supported by four Tuscan columns. Noteworthy is the late-classicist main altar from the first half of the 19th century with a Rococo crucifix and two Rococo side altars with the sculptures of saints and the paintings of: Virgin and Child with St. Anne ca. mid- 17th century and the Virgin Mary with Child from the 17th century, in wooden Baroque dresses, as well as St. Joseph and the Three Kings from the 2nd half of the 18th century in the finials. Near the chancel there is a late Renaissance tombstone of Stanislaw Sapiński, who died in 1584, and of his wife Katarzyna, nee Włościejewska, who died in 1588, put up by their son around 1600. In the porch under the tower there is an epitaph plaque of Ludwik Fundament Kraśnicki, who died in 1890, and Helena Kraśnicka née Łaszczewska, who died in 1905. In the sacristy there is the epitaph plaque of Rev. Ignacy Liwski, who died in 1791. In front of the church, on a high column, stands a monument with the bust of Archbishop Antoni Baraniak, designed by J. Korfanty and unveiled in 2003.

Visitor access: the site is open to visitors.

Compiled by: Beata Marzęta, Regional Branch of the National Institute of Cultural Heritage in Poznań, 27.09.2017

Bibliography

• Katalog Zabytków Sztuki w Polsce, Vol. V: Województwo poznańskie, z. 25: Powiat śremski, compiled by T. Ruszczyńska, A. Sławska, Warsaw 1961, pp. 31-33
• Szmidt Z., Powiat śremski, przewodnik turystyczny, Śrem 2010, pp. 74-75