Holy Trinity Church in Owieśnie

The Holy Trinity Church in Owieśnie is a late Gothic-Renaissance church with a well-preserved spatial layout and mass. It is an example of the strong persistence of traditionalism in Silesian 16th-century sacred architecture in rural areas.
History

Owiesno was mentioned in 1260, but there was no church in the village at the time. It was founded as an Evangelical church by the estate's owner Friedrich von Bock, an Utraquist, a representative of the Hussite movement, which still existed in the 16th century and was conciliatory towards the Catholic Church, advocating, among other things, Communion under two forms. Hence, one of the vault keystones of the current church depicts a chalice and contains the inscription sub utraque specie. The church in Owieśnie was built in 1581-1583, in the spirit of strong traditionalism, with elements of late Gothic and elements of modern, Renaissance construction. The overall disposition and body of the church was strongly traditional, with a straight-enclosed, isolated chancel, with very steep roofs and high gables, and a massive western tower reinforced with buttresses. Narrow windows were also traditionally carved, the nave was covered with a ceiling and the chancel was vaulted. It was covered with a late Gothic-Renaissance cross-ribbed vault with semicircular shield walls and with profiled ribs penetrating into the wall. Other openings, including the rainbow arch, were similarly semicircularly carved. The portal in the tower was given proportions characteristic of late 16th and early 17th century architecture.

In the spirit of Renaissance architecture, the chancel was widened in relation to the nave and a tower was erected with a distinctive body, quadrilateral with roofed corners, at the base of the upper octagonal bell chamber. It is very reminiscent of the tower of the church in Chobinia, rebuilt after the fire of 1620. Despite all these features of the new architecture, however, the church evokes associations more with medieval sacred architecture than with modern architecture. In 1654 it was handed over to Catholics, and in 1666-1667 it already had the invocation of the Holy Trinity. It was noted at the time that it was built of stone and covered with shingles. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the church, already a branch church, was repaired and rebuilt to a small extent, but the extent of the work is unknown. Perhaps as early as the 18th century(?) a baroque wooden music choir was built with a balcony carved with a concave-convex curve. This choir was repaired and rebuilt in the 4th quarter of the 19th century. Probably at that time the supporting pillars and perhaps the stringers above them were replaced. As late as the 1960s, a very modest historic facade decoration was still preserved, consisting of plaster bands of openings and a plaque with the Throne of Grace (circa 1600) above the tower entrance. The roof featured eyelid windows. Today, after renovations in the 1970s and after 1983, the facades are plain.

Description

The oriented, stone-built, plastered church stands on the culmination of a small hill.It is single-nave, with a separate chancel, not much wider and lower than the nave (with a vestry on the north), with a rectangular nave and a west tower with massive buttresses. The simply closed, two-bay chancel is covered with a cross-ribbed vault with profiled ribs penetrating the walls. Through a semicircular rainbow arch it is open towards the nave covered with a ceiling with a ceiling. In the western part of the nave there is a wooden music choir with a concave-convex balcony supported by two pillars. Developed uniformly, the facades of the chancel and nave are smoothly plastered, without articulation. Exposed are segmentally closed window niches containing narrow, elongated windows with solid arches. Only a small oculus is placed in the closing elevation of the chancel topped with a high triangular gable. A vaulted sacristy with a pitched roof is added to the chancel on the north. The quadrilateral, five- or six-story western tower in the lower part is boarded with two very massive diagonal scarps. It contains in the ground floor an interior covered with a beamed ceiling. The quadrilateral shaft of the tower is narrowed over the fourth story and has corners covered with gabled roofs, in connection with the transition to an octagonal upper story with a bell chamber.

This storey, with windows similar to those of the chancel and nave, is topped by a simplified cornice and covered by an octagonal, tented tower roof. The tower's elevations are smoothly plastered, without articulation. In the south side elevation there is a semicircularly closed unframed entrance hole.Above it in a shallow niche is a stone slab with a relief depicting the Holy Trinity (Throne of Grace), the coats of arms of the estate owner of the von Bock family and his wife and an inscription. The church's furnishings include a wooden, architectural, main altar, polychrome (a la marbleization), with gates and a painting depicting the Holy Trinity (ca. 1730, Baroque, partially rebuilt in the 19th century), pulpit with relief images of evangelists (ca. mid-19th century), organ (Baroque, ca. 1720), oil paintings from the 18th century, and - epitaphs and tombstones inside the church and on its facades, from the late 16th century to the 1st half of the 19th century inclusive), including the epitaph of Friedrich von Bock (†1592), tombstones of his two wives (†1575 and †1617), and four slabs from around 1600 in the church floor, of a girl, a matron, a knight and a lady.

The monument is accessible all year round, and it is possible to visit the interior by telephone appointment.