In the spring of 1941, Polish refugees travelling to Syria and Palestine donated a glass-painted copy of the image of Our Lady of Czestochowa to the Catholic Church in Mersin in Anatolia.

Mersin in Turkey - origins of the Catholic parish
The seaport of Mersin in the mid-nineteenth century contributed to the rapid growth of the city, which was then home to a large Christian community. Some of them had moved from nearby Tarsus with the relocation of the French consulate, some were refugees from Lebanon, where religious unrest was ongoing. In 1853, a decision was taken to build a Catholic church, and two years later Sultan Abdülmecid I gave official permission to establish a parish in Mersin. The Church of St Anthony of Padua is the concathedral of the Apostolic Vicariate of Anatolia and is located in the centre of the city, near the seafront.

The church and school, under the direction of the Capuchin friars, operated until the outbreak of the First World War (during which the Catholic states of Italy and France were opponents of Turkey). The school was closed, but the church and friary are still open today and bring together a community of Christians of different rites.

Our Lady of Czestochowa - image on glass
. The painting with the image of Our Lady of Czestochowa, which is a copy of the icon of Jasna Gora, is one of the most interesting and valuable pieces of equipment in the church. Adorned with a radiant gloria, the image on glass was originally placed above the statue of St Anthony in the presbytery. The work was made through the efforts of Polish war refugees temporarily residing in Mersin, on their way to Palestine, and was offered to the church as a memento of their stay. A document drawn up by the donors and signed by all those who contributed - financially and artistically - to the painting is preserved in the parish archives.

The author of the icon on glass was the Cracovian painter Tadeusz Terlecki from the group of refugees, the wooden structure holding the glass was made by the engineer Józef Bychowiec, and all the decorative elements (rays) were made by Jadwiga Prażmowska. According to a surviving document, the artists worked for three weeks almost without a break, day and night, and the ceremonial unveiling and consecration of the painting took place on 25 March 1941 during a mass at 9:30 a.m., in the presence of a large group of Poles and local worshippers. In the 1970s, during the redecoration of the church, the painting was moved and placed above the entrance, on the choir balustrade. Unfortunately, this operation badly affected the object's state of preservation.

Polish stained glass in Mersin - fabrication techniques
The image depicting the icon of Our Lady of Czestochowa and the surrounding decorations were made using a variety of techniques. The glazing was decorated using the stained-glass technique which allows painting on a transparent sub-image. The gold background of the image of Our Lady was created using the technique of close eglomisation, i.e. gilding or silvering and painting under glass. These are thin flakes of metal foil imitating real gold (schagmetal), and the small silver fragments appearing in some of the glass are chocolate wrappers pasted underneath. The individual panes of decorated glass were attached by tin plates to a structure made of solid wood and plywood. The entire composition consists of more than two hundred painted glass panes of various sizes, the largest of which, the icon, measures 89.5 x 78 cm.

Ordinary window glass was used to make the image. The colours of the image and the surrounding rays are two primary colours: the black of the contours and the gold of the fillings. All elements of the composition are painted flat and ornamental, as in folk painting; only the faces and hands of the figures are accentuated with chiaroscuro and colour. Small colour accents also appear in the circular forms decorating the rays. It is interesting to note that, according to the aforementioned document, there were to be scenes depicting the mysteries of the rosary.

Renovation of a Polish stained glass window in Mersin
The icon with the image of Our Lady of Czestochowa is surrounded by an inscription in Polish, "Queen of the Polish Crown, pray for us", above which is the winged head of an angel. In front of the painting, a small Polish coat of arms hangs on a chain. The whole composition does not have a uniform plane, the central part - the icon together with the inscription - is moved forward, and above the winged head of the angel there is an additional crown made of metal and glass. Unfortunately, some of the metal elements of the crown, visible in the archival photographs, were not preserved and were not restored during the conservation.

The size of the entire work including the rays is 4.5 metres horizontally and over 4 metres vertically. A document in the parish archives notes that scaffolding had to be erected for the work to hang in the chancel, as its weight exceeds 120 kilograms. Originally the structure was attached to the church's roof truss with steel wires, but now the work is held up by a steel chain attached to the choir balustrade.

In 2015, on the initiative of the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Ankara and with funds from the programme of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage , 'Protection of Cultural Heritage Abroad', Polish conservators carried out a comprehensive restoration of the work in the church in Mersin. A document drawn up by Polish refugees also underwent conservation treatment.