Haczów – Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Michael the Archangel.
Fun fact: St. Vedast (Vedastus, Vaast).
Bishop Vedast lived at the turn of the 5th and 6th centuries and was the first bishop of the French diocese of Arras. The fact his image can be found among the paintings in Haczów is really surprising, because he was not a popular saint in Poland and there are no other depictions of him in our art. However, it must be Vedast that is displayed in the church in Haczów, because he has a rather unique attribute in the form of a wolf holding a goose in its mouth.
This attribute comes from a legend about a wolf snatching a goose that belonged to a poor family; St. Vedast took the bird from the wolf, brought it back to life and gave it back to the poor owners. The image of Vedast might have been related to the fact that Haczów had numerous residents with German roots, and the saint was venerated in German territories.
Fun fact: The Martyrdom of St. Stanislaus.
The depiction of the Martyrdom of St. Stanislaus in Haczów is one of the oldest surviving examples of this scene in Polish art. According to legend, Stanislaus was killed while he was celebrating Mass in a church: we see how the king himself raises his sword and kills the bishop during the liturgy. According to the story, Bolesław II the Generous killed Stanislaus himself and then ordered his corpse to be dismembered.
Stanislaus, the Bishop of Kraków, lived in the 11th century and was killed in 1079 (in quite mysterious circumstances). The chronicles of the so-called Gallus Anonymus do not provide information concerning the reasons behind the story or its details; it only says that there was a serious conflict between the bishop and King Bolesław. Bishop Stanislaus was canonized in 1253. The following year saw the solemn proclamation of the saint and the translation of his relics.
It was only then, connected with the efforts to canonize the bishop, that his legend was born (over 150 years after the death of the saint). Therefore, it is not historically credible: the story about the king killing the priest during the Mass was simply taken from the legend of St. Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Depictions of the legend of St. Stanislaus were popular in the late-Gothic art of Lesser Poland, although most examples date from the beginning of the 16th century. The scene in Haczów is, therefore, one of the oldest surviving examples of the depiction of Martyrdom of St. Stanislaus. The saint may have been put in an important place among the decorations of the Haczów church because of the founder of the paintings (as Piotr Łaptkiewicz suggests, it might have been nobleman Stanisław Jeżowski, the owner of Haczów village).
Fun fact: Virgin Mary on the Moon.
The contemporary mural on the ceiling of the chancel in the Haczów church shows the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary; the chancel also houses a late-Gothic figure of the Virgin Mary and Baby Jesus. In both cases, we can see a crescent moon at Mary’s feet. We call this type of image Maria Immaculata, which is a symbolic depiction of the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the doctrine teaching that the mother of Christ was the only one to be conceived without original sin and her conception was thus immaculate.
The Feast of the Immaculate Conception became popular in the 13th and 14th centuries, but, initially, the idea of Immaculatae Conceptionis had more opponents than supporters. Eventually, the Council of Basel (1439) stated that belief in the immaculate conception of Mary is in accord with the Catholic faith, which was confirmed by Pope Sixtus IV in his constitutions (1476; 1480).
However, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary was not dogmatically defined until 1854.
In art, the concept of Immaculatae Conceptionis was portrayed by showing Mary as a Woman of the Apocalypse: clothed in the Sun and with the Moon under her feet, the way John the Evangelist saw her in his vision. The woman described in the Apocalypse is defined as being chosen by God, the way Mary was supposed to have been chosen, and as the future mother of the Messiah, free from the burden of original sin at conception.
Fun fact: Salvator Mundi.
The ceiling in the nave of the Haczów church was arranged at the beginning of the 21st century, using ten original medieval boards containing the remains of murals. The preserved elements include a figure of Christ shown as Salvator Mundi, or the Saviour of the World. This type of depiction is believed to have evolved in 15th-century Netherlands, as a result of combining the images of Christ in Majesty (Maiestas Domini) with depictions of the Holy Face of Jesus, as seen on the Veil of Veronica. The former type is similar to Salvator Mundi, the representation of Christ with one hand raised in blessing and the other hand holding a globus cruciger, while the latter type, which was thought to be a “real portrait” of the Saviour, is similar in its frontal view.
Salvator Mundi has no crown on his head, is usually dressed modestly and often portrayed as barefoot. It is a unique mixture of God and man merged in one person: this type of depiction emphasizes the coexistence of both natures of Christ: divine and human; it also emphasizes the humility of the Saviour who, as a ruler of the universe, became a man. The inscription on the banderole (“O Rex Gloriae Veni Cum Pace […]” – “Oh King of Glory, Come with Peace”) suggests that the representation was to be viewed in an eschatological context (connected with the Last Judgement and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ).
Fun fact: Consecration crosses.
The oldest elements of painting decorations in Haczów (3rd quarter of the 15th century?) consist of consecration crosses (Polish: Zacheuszki), i.e. signs in the form of Greek crosses on the interior walls showing the 12 spots where the bishop anointed the church with chrism during its consecration. The number ‘twelve’ referred to the number of Apostles.
In front of each cross, there was a place for a candle which was lit on the anniversary of the consecration. The Polish name derives from the evangelical figure of Zacchaeus, a wealthy chief tax-collector, who hosted Jesus in his house in Jericho. As a result of this visit, Zacchaeus decided to give half his possessions to the poor, and to those he had ever wronged (returned fourfold).
Fun fact: Miron Białoszewski’s poem.
In 1956, the State Publishing Institute PIW published a book of poetry by Miron Białoszewski titled “Obroty rzeczy” (Changing Things”), including poems written in the years 1952-1955, e.g. “Barbara of Haczów”:
— Barbara made of ash and silver…
— I am made of wood.
— Barbara from under the grey shingle…
— I am from under the blue.
(…)
In the early 1950s, Białoszewski would enthuse over the art and culture of Subcarpathia, and his expeditions into these areas resulted in poems; particular verses of the piece “Barbara of Haczów” clearly show that the poet visited the church before the medieval murals were revealed from under the plaster (“and your house / is silver and ash. / — It is lime plaster. / — Plaster? / — It is lime plaster.”), when the temple was neglected (“By the roadside, / no nails, / but instead: / firstly – spiderwebs, / secondly — layers of dust”) and it was thought to be a relic of the 17th century (“— You are talkative, / Baroque Barbara. / — Baroque? / — Yes.”).
