Historical outline

The village is located 6 kilometres north-west of Kopyczyniec, on the road from Ternopil to Zaleszczyki. The oldest mention of Jablonov dates back to the time of Wladyslaw Jagiello. At that time, the king granted the estate to Piotr Dobek of Olevin along with other villages. The owners and leaseholders of the village over the centuries include Jan Świnka, Stanisław of Chodecz (15th century), and Mikołaj Potocki (16th century). At the height of the 16th century, Jabłonów was granted the privilege of a town under the Magdeburg Law. At the end of the next century, Jan Potocki was registered as the life tenant, and within this family the ownership of the town lasted for another century. For a while the starosty passed into the possession of the Lipsky family, and at the end of the 18th century the Jablonowski key was handed over by the Austrian authorities to the heirs of Tadeusz Dzieduszycki (as compensation for other lost estates). It remained in the hands of this Jablonow family until the Second World War.

As Michał Kurzej writes in his study of the site, the Dzieduszycki family founded a kindergarten and a folk house in the village. In addition, Jablonów also had a manor house surrounded by a large park.

Originally Jablonov came under the parish of Kopyczyce, but in 1904 an expiatory office was established there within the Chortkivsky decanson. It also included the nearby village of Sukhostav. Jabloniv became an independent parish only in 1923.

The construction of the temple was initiated by Stanislav Voloshyn in 1900, with the support of Florentyna Cienska (née Dzieduszycka), owner of the estate at the time.

When the Soviets decided to deport the Polish population after World War II, some of the furnishings managed to be moved to the local church, but the larger batch was packed up and taken to Bytom. Unfortunately, most likely, it was later stolen.

Under the domination of the USSR, the church was closed and the building was used as a kolkhoz grain warehouse. A coal-fired boiler house operated there from 1975. In 1992, the church was returned to the faithful and renovated.

Architecture

The building is located near the road from Tudorovo. It is situated on a small hill, not far from the church and the manor house. The church was built of brick, on a stone foundation and plastered. It consists of a three-bay nave, which contains an annex with facilities for the music choir, and a lower and narrower single-bay chancel closed with a trilateral arch, which faces towards the symbolic east, by implication Jerusalem. The altar section is flanked by rectangular annexes housing the vault and sacristy. The front annex is flanked by a tower with a porch on the ground floor. On its floor is the choir, and to its sides are two rectangular rooms (open to the nave), which contain the staircase leading to the choir and the storehouse.

The exterior elevations are set on a plinth. One third of their height is framed by a moulded cornice. The corners of the façade and the elevations are girded by low, flat buttresses. According to Michał Kurzej, in his study of the building: The façade is tri-axial, single-storey with a chisalitic central field, which corresponds to the tower.

Attention is drawn to the main entrance, framed by a portal house. It is formed by pseudo-pillars that support a flat superstructure. It consists of a pointed-arch arcade housing the upper part of the entrance opening, which is surmounted by a triangular abutment interrupted at the lower part. Above this is a circular window in a flat frame. The upper storey of the tower is pierced by pointed windows.

There is a gable roof over the nave. The altar section has a similar gable roof, except that it changes to a multi-pitch roof on the east side. The other parts have gable and tripartite roofs. All are covered with zinc sheeting. The helmet of the front tower is in the form of a pyramid. It is reinforced with rhombus-shaped tin scales and topped with a knob with a cross. The turret for the signature tower was also clad in sheet metal and covered with a tent roof and topped with a cross.

The articulation of the internal walls was carried out with pseudo-pillars, which support sections of the beam. At the closing corners of the altar section, however, these have been broken to support the walling pointed arcades. All other arcades, including the rainbow arcade, are also pointed arched. Above the nave section there is a wooden imitation of a cradle vault. The windows in the side walls are rectangular and closed with pointed arches. The front wall and the eastern wall on the axis of the closing of the altar section have oculus, i.e. circular windows.

The building is currently in good condition, which was influenced by the careful renovation carried out in the early 1990s. It is worth noting that some of the former furnishings and decoration have been preserved in the church, mainly: floors, stained glass windows, two side altars, but also to a large extent the main altar. One of the missing elements is a painting depicting the image of St. Elisabeth, the original of which is now in Kopyczyce. In Jablonowo, on the other hand, there is a copy of it.

As Michal Kurzej writes in his study of the building, the style of Jablonov church was often described as Gothic. However, in reality, the design was a resultant between neo-Gothic, neo-Romanesque and modern elements. The Neo-Gothic vectors are mainly the trilateral closed chancel, buttresses and pointed openings. The Neo-Romanesque elements are the arcaded friezes, while the pilastered articulation of the inner walls and the continuous beam of the façade are references to the modern era.

It is possible that the architecture of this church, in its simplified form, refers to the church in nearby Chorostkowo.

Name: Parish Church of St. Elizabeth the Queen in Jablonowo

Current name: Same as above.

Section: Architecture

Location: Ukraine, District: Chortkivsk region, Town: Jabloniv

Author: Unknown

Date of construction: early 20th century.

Technical data: Brick object