Parish Church of St Anthony of Padua in Bialohorshch (now a district of Lviv), photo СЕРП75ДНІПРО, 2022
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Fotografia przedstawiająca St Anthony of Padua Parish Church in Bialohorské
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ID: POL-001986-P/160617

St Anthony of Padua Parish Church in Bialohorské

ID: POL-001986-P/160617

St Anthony of Padua Parish Church in Bialohorské

History
Once upon a time the village of Bialohorshchy (now Bilyohorshchy), now a district of Lviv, belonged to the parish in Zimnavoda. In 1911, the village received land from the municipality "for a Roman Catholic rectory to be established (...)". Over the following years, efforts were made to register the donation in the land register. The matter was finally settled in 1937, at which time Archbishop Bolesław Twardowski erected an independent parish in Biłohorszcz, which also included Rudno - both villages were automatically excluded from the earlier parish of Zimnavoda.

Prior to the creation of the parish, a public chapel was built in Bilyhorshch between 1911 and 1913 on the initiative of the municipality and Father Hubert Wegman, parish priest in Zimnavoda. The construction was financed by municipal funds and contributions from parishioners. The chapel was consecrated on 13 June 1919 under the name of St Anthony of Padua. In 1934 three bells were purchased for the chapel from the Felczyński company of Przemyśl, ordered by Father Józef Sadowski, parish priest in Zimnejwoda. In the following years, the chapel was elevated to the status of a parish church, which provided an opportunity to renovate the building and complete its furnishings. In 1937, a glazed vestibule was built, the walls and vault were repainted, a new main altar was made and much of the furnishings were added. Unfortunately, the bells were requisitioned by the German authorities in 1943.

In 1945, Father Czesław Tuzinkiewicz and his parishioners left the parish, taking much of the church equipment with them. Some of it went to the church in Pielgrzymka in Lower Silesia, also some of the records were taken by Father Tuzinkiewicz to Bobrowice. It was also he who, in 1954, moved the image of Our Lady of Perpetual Help from Pielgrzymka to the church of Saints Stanislaus, Dorothy and Wenceslaus in Wrocław, and ten years later returned the parish records, including some of the metric books, to Lubaczewo. In the early 1990s, the church in Biłohorszcz was converted into an Orthodox church and renovated.

Today, the church is in good condition.

Architecture
The brick, plastered church is situated by the road, on a fenced square. The chancel faces south. The nave is four-bay with a narrower single-bay chancel, closed bipartite. Adjacent to the chancel to the east is a vestry of rectangular plan, to the west we have a spacious rectangular chapel. On the sides of the north bay of the nave are attached rectangular annexes, next to the south bay to the east is an imposing tower on a square plan.

Pillars have been added at the walls of the nave to form the base of the massive pointed arches dividing the vault bays. The arcade is of the rainbow type, sharp-arched. In the side walls of the nave and in the close of the chancel are rectangular windows closed with pointed arches, a similar but slightly wider window in the north wall. There are two narrow rectangular windows each in the annexes to the nave. The entrance openings are also rectangular. The choir is made of wood and is accessible by a staircase in the north-west corner.

The façade is tripartite and single storey, surmounted by a triangular gable with cross. The church porch opens to the front with a wide, slightly pointed arcade and to the sides with narrow openings closed with pointed arches. On its upper storey is a balcony protected by a balustrade. Above the balcony is a window. The side elevations have a low plinth, while the nave elevations are articulated with lisens supporting a cornice. The roof over the nave is gabled, the chancel and the vestry have multi-pitched roofs, the other annexes have pent roofs, and the tower has a high tent roof, all covered with sheet metal.

The former furnishings of the church included the main altar, made in 1937 by Wladyslaw Mielniczek from Lvov, a wooden altar with a gilded movable Eucharistic throne and the previously mentioned painting of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and a painting of St Anthony on a slider. The church also contained a side altar, a two-voice harmonium, a wooden and carved confessional, numerous wooden sculptures and a reliquary of the Holy Cross. The Stations of the Cross, which belonged to the church, can now be found in the church in Pielgrzymka.

The church has recently been renovated and plastered, with new paintings inside. New furnishings, adapted to the Eastern Rite, have been purchased.

In terms of style, the church in Biylohorshch is an example of late provincial neo-Gothic, but some modern elements, such as barrel vaults and lisens, have also been incorporated. The most original part is probably the monumental tower, topped with a characteristic attic. Its originality is connected with the fact that such solutions are not common in the architecture of the 15th and 16th centuries in Ruthenia and Lesser Poland, which would suggest that the unknown architect of the church in Biograd used probably Gothic-Renaissance patterns from Silesia, Bohemia or Germany.

It is also worth mentioning the painting 'Our Lady of Perpetual Help', which was painted by Sister Thadea, a Felician nun from Lviv, who was a skilled amateur painter.

Time of origin:

1919

Bibliography:

  • Joanna Wolańska, „Kościół Parafialny p.w. Św. Antoniego Padewskiego w Białohorszczu” [w:] „Materiały do dziejów sztuki sakralnej na ziemiach wschodnich dawnej Rzeczypospolitej. Kościoły i klasztory rzymskokatolickie dawnego województwa ruskiego.” Cz. I. T. 8. Kraków 2000, 23-26.

Publikacja:

02.11.2024

Ostatnia aktualizacja:

10.11.2024

Author:

Izabela Miecznikowska
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Fotografia przedstawiająca St Anthony of Padua Parish Church in Bialohorské
Parish Church of St Anthony of Padua in Bialohorshch (now a district of Lviv), photo СЕРП75ДНІПРО, 2022

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