St. Michael Archangel's Church in Dębno
Kościół św. Michała Archanioła w Dębnie
- UNESCO World Heritage
Interesting facts
- The church's little chimes have a strange scale where longer plates sound higher; their tone is said to come from a special alloy buried underground for a time.
- The interior stencils were probably used again elsewhere, and their largely secular motifs suggest they also decorated noble manor houses.
- It was the only wooden church nominated in the national contest for the Seven Wonders of Poland.
- The building is tiny: the nave measures about 7 by 8.3 metres and the chancel just 5 by 5.9 metres.
- A copy of a panel painting of about 1280 showing Saints Agnes and Catherine hangs here; the original, thought to be Poland's oldest, is now in Kraków.
- A statue of St Nicholas carved in 1420 stands in a wooden case painted inside with Saints Stephen and Lawrence.
- Closed, the wings of the main altarpiece show Passion scenes painted around 1530, already touched by Renaissance influence.
- The covered walkways around the walls first protected the timber foundations from rain, and only later sheltered the congregation.
- In the Janosik wedding scene viewers actually see three churches: the couple enter one, marry in Dębno and walk out of a third.
Why it is worth it
The wooden Church of St Michael the Archangel in Dębno Podhalańskie is one of the best-preserved Gothic log churches in Poland and a member of the World Heritage group of wooden churches of southern Lesser Poland. A church probably stood on the site in the thirteenth century; the present nave and chancel date from the second half of the fifteenth century. The building has kept its original outline almost unchanged, with a single steep shingle roof, low arcaded walkways around the walls added in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and a slender tower with sloping walls built in 1601, thought to be among the oldest of its type in the country.
What sets Dębno apart from the other churches of the group is its painted interior. Around 1500 the walls and ceiling were covered with stencilled decoration in 33 colours, arranged in bands of 77 repeated motifs: plant and geometric ornament, but also figures and animals, especially deer. It is regarded as the oldest fully preserved painting of this kind on wood in Europe. Over the rood beam hangs a crucifix from around 1380, its arms made from natural tree branches, probably inherited from the earlier church, and a Jagiellonian eagle is painted nearby.
The furnishings include a triptych altarpiece of the early sixteenth century with St Michael holding his sword and scales, Gothic sculptures from around 1440 and a fourteenth-century painted tabernacle. The church also keeps an old set of small metal bells or chimes with an unusual scale, and a sixteenth-century embroidered banner which, by an unconfirmed tradition, was left by the troops of John III Sobieski on their return from Vienna. The church twice appeared on the World Monuments Watch list of endangered sites, in 1996 and 1998. Polish television viewers know it as the setting of Janosik's wedding in the 1973 series.
Getting there
Dębno lies in the Podhale region, about 13 km from Nowy Targ. The nearest airport is Poprad-Tatry Airport (TAT) in Slovakia, about 44 km away; within Poland, Kraków John Paul II International Airport (KRK) is about 75 km away. The church is an active parish, so check visiting times and avoid services.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
St. Michael Archangel's Church in Dębno is a Roman Catholic Gothic-wooden church located in the Polish Goral village of Dębno from the fifteenth-century. Together with different churches, it is designated as part of the UNESCO Wooden Churches of Southern Lesser Poland.
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