History
The stone parish church in Kożuchów (German: Freystadt) was built in the mid-13th century as a modest and small structure, constructed a dozen or so years after the town’s foundation. This time was likely used to gather stone, timber and lime, find suitable workshop, and meet the other most pressing needs of the newly established town (wood and earth fortifications, residential buildings). The earliest record of the church was in 1273, in a document by Bishop Thomas II of Wrocław, which mentioned Henry, the parish priest of Kożuchów. Document from 1287 recorded that Henry III of Głogów granted patronage over the church to the Teutonic Order.
In 1339, the church was destroyed by fire. At the initiative of Henry V the Iron, it was rebuilt and enlarged between 1340 and 1369. Due to the existing urban buildings, the nave was retained at the same length but its width was increased. The old chancel was also retained, although it was enlarged with a side aisle. Before 1376, the enlarged church received a new dedication, expanded by St. John the Baptist and St. Michael, which was likely related to the founding of new side altars next to the main altar of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Further rebuilding of the church took place at the end of the 14th and in the 15th centuries, funded by the princes of Głogów, when chapels, porches, and a sacristy were added. One of the chapels, dedicated to the Holy Cross, was founded by Henry IX for the then-established mansionary, a congregation of clergy, prebendaries and vicars, whose task was to enhance services with song. Henry IX the Elder and his successor, Henry XI, were later buried in the crypt of this chapel.
The death of Henry XI in 1476 marked the end of Kożuchów’s brief period as a capital town. Prince Jan II of Żagań’s struggles for the succession to his deceased cousin, waged against Brandenburg and the Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus, ended in the defeat in 1489. During this time, the Kożuchów was besieged twice, and its parish church was damaged (the damages were likely limited to burned roofs, without the collapse of the vaults). During the later reconstruction, the church’s roof was fundamentally transformed, significantly altering appearance of the building. A fire in 1554 necessitated further renovation and reconstruction, culminating in the installation or renewal of a vault over the chancel and nave.
In 1524, the Kożuchów parish church became Protestant. Initially, this change did not affect the interior furnishings, as the Reformation in Silesia was not radical and spread with considerable approval from the bishops of Wrocław. More dangerous to the building were the numerous fires in the early modern period. In addition to the fire in 1554 mentioned above, the church was destroyed by fire in 1637, 1669, 1692, and 1714. The entire interior was reportedly destroyed by fire in 1637, resulting in the loss of the building’s Gothic furnishings. One fire likely damaged the vaults, next replaced with early modern ones, while the last one burned down the tower, causing the melted bells to fall and causing additional damage. In 1725, the Baroque Gethsemane Chapel was added. During the reconstruction after another fire in 1764, the church also gained new low roofs and a Baroque finial of the tower. Fortunately, the church survived World War II without significant damages.
Architecture
The church was built within the defensive walls, in the western part of the town, where the churchyard was connected by a corner with the market square. It was built on a flat area, with the terrain sloping down significantly to the west and north. Its western façade may initially have been turned to the fortifications, while the chancel to the east bordered the street leading towards the castle and the Krosno Gate. To the south, a side street led to the main road, connected to the Żagań Gate. In the Middle Ages, the church was surrounded by a cemetery, which was reduced to the north in the 15th century, when a large house for prebendaries was built on its edge. The building of a parish school may also have stood nearby, recorded since the 14th century.
The original church from the 13th century was a not very large, two-part structure, built of erratic stones bound with lime mortar, made very strong by the addition of proteins in the form of carrion or cattle blood. Church had a rectangular nave with a 1.8-meter thick wall and a narrower, also rectangular chancel with a wall thickness of 1.5 meters. The dimensions of the chancel were 8.7 x 15.1 meters, while the nave about 12.5 x 21.6 meters. The west wall had two diagonal buttresses and a window (maybe round or with rounded head) and a three-stepped entrance portal on the axis with columns on the sides. Its archivolt had an ogival form. Buttresses, probably also located along the longitudinal walls, indicate that the church was planned to be vaulted. Its large width rather excluded a single-space interior, while the two-nave arrangement was excluded by a large window and west portal. Thus, the church probably had a central nave with two aisles, covered by one gable roof above the whole nave and one above the chancel.
In the fourteenth or at the end of the thirteenth century, a four-sided tower was added from the north side of the chancel. For the construction of its walls, 2.7 meters thick, erratic stones and bricks were used in the lower part, while the upper octagonal part of the tower was built entirely of bricks. The corners of its upper part were shaped as shafts. In the walls of the lower floors, small four-sided windows were made, and on the upper floors, much larger ogival windows. The ground floor of the tower, which probably served as a sacristy, was accessed via an entrance from the south, from the chancel, and a small western passage led from the aisle.
The first major expansion in the mid-14th century, involved widening the already brick nave by 12.5 meters, with the new central nave gaining 8.7 meters in width and the entire nave approximately 14 meters in height. This widening was likely a result of the very narrow original side aisles, as well as the impossibility of significantly extending the church due to urban development. A south aisle was also built next to the chancel, along with an attached sacristy. The church’s length remained unchanged in the 14th century, except that a tall western porch was added towards the end of the century, which was originally opened on three sides (its great height was necessitated by the western window of the nave).
In the 14th century, the church was already such a large building that one entrance from the west was not enough, so two additional portals were built on the southern side. One of them, a small, stepped one, was placed in the western bay of the nave, and the other one with moulded jambs in the western bay of the southern aisle of the chancel. The nave was divided into rectangular bays in the central part and bays similar to square in the aisles. The spacing of the bays was determined by the inter-nave piers and buttresses attached to the exterior walls. The side aisle adjacent to the chancel was opened on the north with arcades, pierced in the older chancel wall, and its interior was covered with a vault. The interior of the enlarged nave was covered with vaults, probably cross-rib, four-bay, supported by six pillars. A two-bay vault may have been installed in the chancel.
In the 15th century, chapels of the Holy Cross and All Saints were added to the northern aisle, opened by arcades to the interior. One of them had particularly large dimensions of three bays, giving the impression of a fourth aisle. Its interior was covered with a cross-rib vault and opened to the nave with high, pointed arcades, while the adjacent chapel from the west, measuring 4.9 x 5.9 meters, was covered with a stellar vault. In the second half of that century, the church was enlarged by further chapels and a porch, this time added to the southern aisle. These chapels were much smaller (an average of 4.9 x 3 meters), placed between the buttresses of the southern aisle, connected with the interior by wide, pointed arcades. Two of them were crowned with stellar vaults of different forms, and the middle one with cross-rib vault. The western chapel was illuminated by ogival, large, three-light windows, while the remaining ones have narrower two-light windows.
At the end of the 15th century, a new, larger sacristy was erected on the north side of the chancel, attached to the tower from the east. Its northern wall was supported by three buttresses (two extreme ones placed at an angle and the middle one perpendicular to the wall), while the eastern one was in line with the closing wall of the chancel. Sacristy received a net vault, while the nave, chancel and chapels were already topped with cross-rib vaults. Probably at the end of the 15th or in the 16th century, the walls of the chancel and its southern annex were raised and leveled with the walls of the nave. The entire transformed structure was covered with a common gable roof. The tower was also raised, topped with a tall pyramidal dome.
Current state
The present form of the church is the result of a long process of medieval expansion, as well as transformations of the Gothic shape introduced in the early modern period, which makes the spatial arrangement of the building extremely complex. The oldest parts from the 13th century are still visible – the western wall of the central nave, the lower part of the tower and the chancel, which are distinguished by its stone structure against the brick later parts. The fourteenth-century fragments of the nave, surrounded by numerous late-Gothic annexes, have survived. A completely early modern addition is the polygonal south-eastern chapel and the cupola of the tower. The layout of the roofs over the eastern part of the church has also been changed. In the Baroque period, the western and southern porches were partially rebuilt, some of the windows of the nave and its annexes were transformed. Architectural details were renovated or replaced. The interior design of the building is now early modern or modern.
bibliography:
Karczewska J., Parafia kożuchowska w średniowieczu [in:] Kościół farny w Kożuchowie w świetle najnowszych badań, Kożuchów 2011.
Kowalski S., Kościół parafialny p.w. Oczyszczenia NMP w Kożuchowie (Zarys historii budowy i rozbudowy) [in:] Kościół farny w Kożuchowie w świetle najnowszych badań, Kożuchów 2011.
Kowalski S., Zabytki architektury województwa lubuskiego, Zielona Góra 2010.
Kozaczewska-Golasz H., Halowe kościoły z XIII wieku na Śląsku, Wrocław 2015.
Kozaczewska-Golasz H., Halowe kościoły z XIV wieku na Śląsku, Wrocław 2013.