Orthodox Church of the Protection of the Mother of God Hańczowa

Monuments

Za drewnianym niskim płotem jasna drewniana, trójdzielna cerkiew z wysoką wieżą z dużym baniastym hełmem i sygnaturką, pokrytymi blachą. Z nawą i prezbiterium na których też są na dachu duże baniaste hełmy z sygnaturkami. Dach pokryty gontem. Po prawej niska, kwadratowa budowla drewniana z baniastym hełmem na dachu. Po bokach wysokie drzewa bez liści. Niebo pochmurne.

Hańczowa 56, 38-316 Wysowa-Zdrój Tourist region: Beskid Sądecki i Niski

tel. +48 183532124

The Lemko Orthodox Church of the Pokrov Bogurodzica, dating from the 19th century, is today a parish church belonging to the Krynica deanery of the Przemyśl-Ogorlice diocese of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church. After renovation, it is one of the most beautiful churches in the country.

The first Church of the Intercession of the Theotokos stood here in 1629; the present one was built on the site of an older one in the 18th century and extensively rebuilt in 1871; the tower may date from the 18th century. Until 1947 and the displacement operation Vistula, it was a Greek Catholic church; from 1947 to 1958, it was a Catholic church. The progressive devastation of the building in 1956 led to the decision to demolish it. The church was saved by the return of several displaced families, who renovated it for an Orthodox parish established in 1958. The building was restored in the 1960s. It was then that the foundations of the old church were uncovered under the nave. The church was also renovated in the 1970sand between 2004 and 2013.

It is a timber-framed, oriented, tripartite church of log construction with shingling and boarding on a stone foundation. It consists of a nave, a presbytery with a vestry, and a tower with a porch. It has a form characteristic of Central Lemko region. Adjoining the wider nave is an elongated vestibule-basilica, over part of which rises a tall, sloping-walled post-and-frame tower with an overhanging presbytery, flagon-shaped cupola, and painted clock faces. A vestry adjoins the trilateral closed, elongated presbytery. There are skeletal porches in front of the entrance to the church and the sacristy. Open to the nave is a babinets with a singing choir. The roofs are tented, gabled and multi-pitched, broken and covered with copper sheeting, topped by spherical cupolas with apparent lanterns.

The interior has flat ceilings, with a truncated dome above the sanctuary. Antoni Bogdański and his sons did the rich figural and ornamental polychrome work in the late 19th century. The late 18th and early 19t-century furnishings include an 18th-century iconostasis in the lowest part with repaintings by Michał Bogdański from 1889, a Baroque main altar and side altars.

A wooden fence with gates dating from the 19th century surrounds the site. The granite cross was erected in 1988 to commemorate the millennium of Ruthenia's baptism. A bronze plaque dedicated to the Lemkos expelled in 1947 hangs on the church wall.