History
Pasłęk (German: Paslok, later Preußisch Holland) received charter in 1297. In this act, the local parish was endowed with four free voloks of land. The construction of the brick church of St. Bartholomew started at the beginning of the fourteenth century, with the erection of the chancel (which would be indicated by the monk bond and a simple eastern gable). After its completion, without any break in building process, around the mid-fourteenth century, the nave and the tower were erected.
From the beginning of functioning until 1525, the church was used by Catholics. Then, as a result of the Reformation, it was taken by Evangelicals. In 1543, a great fire broke out in the town, during which the church was also damaged, especially its roofs, vaults, woodwork and probably still late Gothic furnishings. Reconstruction was carried out in the years 1543-1546, and then in 1566 the southern porch was added. In 1646, the roof of the tower was renovated, thanks to which a clock could be installed on it in 1696.
At the beginning of the 18th century, the church was already in a bad condition, and even one of the bays of the side aisle collapsed in 1719. For this reason, the church underwent a thorough reconstruction in the years 1746-1751. At that time, the upper windows were enlarged and new lower ones were pierced. Also the Gothic pillars with arcades were removed, and the interior was transformed to an aisleless, to make room for galleries. In addition, the church was covered with a new roof and the stairs leading to the tower were dismantled. After the fire in 1752, the tower was covered with a Baroque roof.
In the 1860s, it was decided to renovate the church and made it Gothic again. During this renovation, a porch was added to the chancel, also a neo-Gothic southern porch was built in place of the older one. In 1922 a fire destroyed the church tower once more. During the reconstruction, its top was changed from the Baroque to the present one. Since 1946, the church has served Catholics again. In the mid-1970s, a number of renovations were carried out – lower windows were bricked up, blendes were plastered, new floors were laid and the roofs were renovated.
Architecture
The church was built of bricks in the monk bond on stone foundation. It probably had the form of a pseudo-basilica structure, consisting of a central nave and two aisles erected on a rectangular plan with dimensions of 31.8 x 20.8 meters, and the oldest part of the building in the form of a short and narrow chancel measuring 14.6 x 10.9 meters, closed in the east with a straight wall. In the western part of the southern aisle, a three-story tower with a four-sided base, 10.4 x 9.7 meters, with a staircase at the eastern wall, was built. Also on the northern side of the chancel, a small sacristy was created. In the second half of the 16th century, a porch was added to the south aisle.
The chancel with massive, thick walls, despite having a vault inside, was not supported with buttresses. Its lighting was provided by three pointed southern windows and one from the north and east. Crude, modest external façades were only decorated with a plastered frieze under the eaves, which separated the gable in the east. The horizontal division also provided a slightly protruding plinth. The triangular, five-axis gable was separated by oblong, pointed blendes with moulded edges, arranged in a pyramidal layout, with the middle blende being distinguished by the greatest width.
The nave was reinforced from the outside with numerous buttresses, in the corners situated at an angle. Until the major reconstruction, it had a very low clerestory zone, with aisles covered with separate mono-pitched roofs and the central nave with a gable roof. The pointed portals were filled with painted oak doors with iron fittings, both single-leaf and double-leaf. Some of them acquired a very decorative latticework, composed of a fragmented twig, forming a row of rhombuses with twigs ended in lilies. The quadrangular lattices were attached to the boards with densely packed nails with large heads in the form of convex, precisely made rosettes. The interior of the nave was divided by four pairs of pillars on a square plan with high pedestals, and two pairs of half-pillars into central nave and two aisles, separated by two rows of narrow arcades. In the lower parts of the walls, recesses with segmental heads were created in several places.
The tower was placed on a moulded plinth, and its facades were decorated with pointed blendes. From the south and west, on the first floor, three moulded panels were created, while the central blende in the western wall raised so that it cut a band frieze. On the second floor of the west wall there are only two blendes, and three on the south and east. The elevations of the ground floor of the tower, in addition to single blendes, were decorated with a diamond pattern made of heavily baked bricks, also placed to a lesser extent on the second floor.
Current state
Most of the church has retained its original spatial layout, but the walls of the nave have been refaced and raised (only the lower parts from the outside are still medieval), the highest part of the tower is early modern (three storeys have survived from the medieval tower). Moreover, the vault in the chancel has not survived, while the pillars and arcades were dismantled in the nave (only half-pillars on the eastern and western sides remained). The southern porch from the 16th century and the annex with stairs at the tower have not survived. What is exceptional, however, is that despite numerous fires in the church, three wooden doors from the 15th century have survived and are currently located in the southern porch and in the sacristy.
bibliography:
Darecka K., Gotyckie drzwi na Żuławach i w ich bezpośrednim otoczeniu. Konstrukcja, okucia, kolorystyka, “Wiadomości Konserwatorskie”, nr 78/2024.
Die Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler der Provinz Ostpreußen, Die Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler des Oberland, red. A.Boetticher, Königsberg 1893.
Herrmann C., Mittelalterliche Architektur im Preussenland, Petersberg 2007.
Rzempołuch A., Kościoły na Warmii, Mazurach i Powiślu, Olsztyn 1991.
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