The Wooden Gate

Wooden church - Zawada - St. Martin Hill - Tarnow - Southern Poland
Taken with Nikon D7000

"The wooden church located on the top of Góra sw. Marcina (St. Martin Hill) was build in 15. century and its tower in 17. century. Inside, excluding historical details, the most interesting is a wooden chain with a lock hanging from the ceiling. Nobody knows when it was made or why, supposedly it is made from one piece of wood. Inside the church, on the walls you can find carved inscriptions from 18. and 19. century. Around the church there are nice old limes.

Before this church was built, another one existed in the same place, as mentioned in chronicles from 1326. The church may have been founded in 12th century or even erlier as legends say. One legend says that the 1st church was build on the place of a Slavic temple.

Another version of the legend says about knight Spycimir who was hunting nearby and heard a call for help from the Dunajec river. At the doors of the Slavic temple carried by water he saw a beautiful girl. Spycimir tied a rope to his sword , cast it onto the wall of the flowing temple and pulled the temple to the river bank. Spycimir married the rescued girl and people brought the temple to the top of the hill and converted it to a church.

Both legends suggest the existence of a site of Slavic worship before the church was built. It is highly probable as nearby there existed an early-medieval gród (Salvic fortified settlement). At the time of introducing Christianity it was a very common practice to locate churches on sites of pagan worship. Most often they were on the tops of hills. St. Martin was famous for destroying and profanation of pagan worship sites, what may explain why he is the patron of the church and the hill.

Before I World War above the main gate huge bones were hanging. Legends say they were bones of giants. Unfotunately they were lost during war.

In 1968 during renovation and archeological excavations a stone obelisk was found. It was an old benchmark counted from prime meridian crossing Ferro (now Greenwich). They found a big block of marble, probably a fragment of a fireplace or a portal from the nearby castle. This block of marble lies now close to the gate leading to cemetery. Inside the church a silver pot with relics and old wooden chest made of one piece of wood was found. Under the floor there were pieces of bones."

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