Chapel of St George in Gryfice

The Chapel of St George in Gryfice is a Gothic building of facing brick from the 15th century. It stands within the cemetery walls on Broniszewska Street, in the north-eastern part of the town. Today it serves as a cemetery chapel and houses a lapidarium.

A hospital outside the town walls

The chapel was built on the site of an older stone chapel of the 14th century. From 1337 a hospital (leprosarium) for the poor, the elderly and the sick, dedicated to St George, operated beside it. The church had three vicarages and a Brotherhood of St George, which was an association of the town's patriciate. Like the Chapel of St Gertrude, it stood outside the town walls.

Architecture

Construction began in the first half of the 15th century. The chapel has a hall layout with a distinct five-sided chancel and the plan of an irregular octagon measuring 12.3 by 7.8 metres, and its area is 112 square metres. The façade facing the cemetery ends with a plain gable with two pinnacles and is divided by seven tall pointed-arch blind windows. The chancel is supported by four buttresses. The windows are filled with stained glass, and epitaphs of the 18th century have survived in the interior. The whole is covered with a saddle roof, and a tented roof over the chancel.

Interior after 1945

The interior differs greatly from its pre-war state. The wooden pulpit, the stalls and the galleries of the late 17th century have disappeared, and the late medieval crucifix and the altar triptych were given to churches in Gryfice and Pyrzyce. The lapidarium was opened in the chapel in 2007. Also preserved in the town are, among others, the Gunpowder Tower and the High Gate.

Practical information

• Location: Broniszewska Street, within the cemetery walls.
• The chapel is entered in the heritage register (no. 191 of 1956).
• Check the dates when the chapel and the lapidarium are open with the municipality or the parish.