In the Romanesque-Gothic cathedral in Kamień Pomorski, there is a small painting in a side chapel barely visible from the distance marked by the wrought-iron grille separating the chapel from the nave. Next to it, on the wall, a marble plaque announces that this is the chapel of the Miraculous Image of the Crucified Jesus of Brzozdowiec from the Archdiocese of Lviv. How did this inconspicuous painting end up in the Pomeranian cathedral?

The erection of the parish of Brzozdowce

Berezovce is a small village about 40 km south of Lviv, with a population of over 1,600 today. The earliest mention of 1410 refers to the foundation of a wooden church by Mikolaj Benek in the newly erected parish. Probably after the destruction of this one, another wooden church was repaired and endowed in 1718 thanks to the collators Franciszek and Anna Cetner.

In 1746, however, a significant event took place. In the house of Jadwiga Dolińska in Annopol, the image of Jesus Crucified there was said to have wept bloody tears. On the basis of numerous confirmations of this event, including by the Archbishop of Lvov, Mikolaj Ignacy Wyżycki, in 1747, the image, which was already in the church of Břebovice, was considered to be famous for its graces. In 1761 the then Kolator Voivode of Podolia, Michal Jozef Rzewuski, decided to build a brick church suitable for the pilgrimage site that Brzozdowce soon became. In 1769, the new temple was erected in its shell, and in 1774 it was consecrated, but the finishing and furnishing work continued until 1777.

The architecture of the Church of the Elevation of the Holy Cross in Architecture of the Church of the Elevation of the Holy Cross in Brzozdowice

On a slight elevation of the land by the main road rises the lofty, compact mass of the church. It is single-spaced, with a regular cruciform ground plan and slightly shallower transept arms. The sparse architectural form with delicate but racy details is characteristic of this phase of Baroque in the Lviv region. At the same time, it testifies to the high level of the designer and workmanship. The builder was probably Florian Richter. However, the plan, mass and forms of detail so faithfully imitate the church in Hodovitsa, which is the confirmed work of Bernard Meretyn, that it cannot be ruled out that this famous architect was the author of the "abridgement", i.e. the design.

The church served as a local pilgrimage centre, associated with the image of the Crucifixion, until the end of the Second World War. After it ended, the inhabitants were under no illusions as to what awaited the Catholics and their church after the communist regime took over. The last Mass was celebrated in the local church on 16 October 1945 by Father Michal Kaspruk. After a long journey, the inhabitants of Brzozdowce, together with their priest, reached Trzebieszewo, a village 5 km east of Kamień Pomorski, on 24 December that year.

From Brzozdowce to Kamień Pomorski

Fr M. Kaspruk was dean of the Kamień Pomorski deanery from 1946 until his death in 1962. Leaving Brzozdowce, the priest took with him the miraculous image of Christ Crucified, 19th-century monstrances, liturgical chalices and the reliquary of the Holy Cross, as well as 18th- and 19th-century chasubles and dalmatics. These found a place in the Church of Stone in 1946. It should be noted that between 1176 and 1544, the church was a cathedral of the Kamień Pomorski diocese, then taken over by Evangelicals, returned to the Roman Catholic Church after 1945, and has been a co-cathedral of the Szczecin-Kamień archdiocese since 1972.

The case of the wandering of church furnishings, valuable not only for their artistic importance, but also having considerable emotional value for the population resettled after 1945 from the former eastern lands of the Republic, is not isolated. There are monuments similar to those in Brzozdowiec in many Polish cities and towns, especially in the western and northern territories, where our compatriots from the east ended up. But not only. In the Dominican church in Służewiec, Warsaw, there is a painting of the Immaculate Queen of the Holy Rosary from the Dominican church in Zhovkva in Ukraine. It is a sad testimony to the cataclysm of the Second World War and its consequences.

Conservation work in Brzozdowice

And the church in Brzozdowce? It was closed for worship in 1949. Turned into a kolkhoz petrol and fertiliser warehouse, it was falling into disrepair. The furnishings were completely destroyed, chemical fumes ruined the wall paintings - the plaster was falling off the vault and the walls. Abandoned over time, it lived to see the fall of communism and was returned to the local Catholic community in 1992. On 23 January 1993, Bishop Marcjan Trofimiak consecrated it. In the following years, the roof was repaired, windows inserted and the floor laid. On 17 September (sic) 1995, a copy of the miraculous painting of the Crucifixion was introduced, funded by Father Olgierd Ostrokołowicz, an inflate of Kamień Pomorski, and brought by pilgrims from Kamień Pomorski.

Various restoration and conservation works are still ongoing. In 2000-2002, conservators Danuta Komorowska and Andrzej Zalewski cleaned and conserved the fresco in the niche behind the main altar. In later years, conservator Tomasz Dziurawiec and his team restored and reconstructed the painted altars in the transept; the work was carried out with funding from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. On the other hand, in 2018-2019, the POLONIKA Institute financed conservation works on the illusionist altarpiece of St Francis of Assisi, made in tempera technique, located in the niche of the nave on the right side. These were carried out by conservators Tomasz Dziuravec and Agnieszka Chojkowska-Sawicka. The sanctuary is cared for by Salvatorian Father Damian Pankowiak. And although the church needs further conservation work, it has been revived.