Church of Our Lady Help of Christians in Żelewo

The Church of Our Lady Help of Christians in Żelewo is a half-timbered church of the end of the 17th century with a wooden tower and a Baroque gallery decorated with biblical scenes about water. It is a filial church of the parish of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Kołbacz.

Half-timbered construction

The church was built in half-timbered construction, on a rectangular plan, under a gable roof. The entrance portal and the windows just under the eaves are rectangular. A wooden, boarded tower on a square plan with a two-stage shingle-covered helm was added at the west. The interior is covered with a beamed ceiling supported by a wood-and-stone pillar.

The gallery with the Flood and the Sea of Galilee

The Baroque gallery has paintings with biblical scenes connected with water: the Flood, the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites, Jonah and Christ on the Sea of Galilee. A carved column altar of 1698 has also survived, with acanthus-leaf ear-shaped ornaments and a predella with a scene of the Last Supper, as well as an oak pulpit of 1683 with a canopy and intarsia. An epitaph of the royal musketeer Michael Nack, who fell in the war against the French, hangs here.

Practical information

• Address: ul. Kościelna 1, Żelewo, Stare Czarnowo municipality.
• The church was consecrated as a Catholic one in June 1947; the service times are given by the parish in Kołbacz.

About 3.6 km from here lies the Cistercian abbey in Kołbacz.