Kościół pw. Świętego Jacka, Wrocław

The Church of Saint Hyacinth is Swojczyce’s Roman Catholic parish church, dedicated to Jacek Odrowąż. Its timber-framed body is the remarkable part: three aisles are carried by a post-and-frame skeleton, while the entrance front and tower are built of brick. The church began life in fifteen thirty-seven as a Protestant church under the dedication of Divine Providence.

It grew in sixteen thirty, then changed hands repeatedly: Catholics received it in sixteen fifty-four, and Lutherans regained it under the Treaty of Altranstädt in seventeen oh eight. Notice the tower, added during a further enlargement in seventeen ten. Its predecessor collapsed in eighteen eighty-nine, damaging the nave wall; the present tower went up the following year.

Inside, galleries rest on pillars beneath a flat timber ceiling. The furnishings preserve several eras together: an eighteenth-century Baroque high altar, a Baroque pulpit from the later seventeenth century, and a stone Gothic-revival font made in eighteen sixty-five. Catholics took over again in nineteen forty-six and restored the building. It is now protected as a provincial historic monument.