Binarowa – Church of St. Michael the Archangel.

The painting showing Christ in the Winepress is of medieval origin and is a Eucharistic image. Christ is standing in a winepress, where He himself becomes the grapes pressed by the cross and by God the Father, or by angels at His command – such a version can be found among Gothic paintings in the cloisters of the Church of St. Francis in Kraków.

The late medieval iconography made a return in the era of Counter-Reformation, when the Eucharistic content in sacred art became popular in Roman-Catholic art.

One of the most famous poems of Miron Białoszewski from the volume “Obroty Rzeczy” (“Changing Things”) (published in 1956) includes “Stara pieśń na Binnarową” (“The Old Song for Binnarowa”). The poet expressed his admiration for the old art preserved in the village church by using archaic language tricks, which can be seen in the title itself stylised as Kochanowski’s epigrams, such as “Na lipę” (“On Linden”) and the double “n” in the name of the village, which was probably supposed to give it a more “old Polish” character.

Even though a lot of people associate the motives of Danse Macabre with the culture of the late Middle Ages, it should be mentioned that the subject of the fragility of human life and the inevitability of death would often appear in Early-Modern literature and art, especially in the era of Counter-Reformation.
In 1621, a Polish translation of the work of the Jesuit Robert Bellarmine, entitled “The Art of Dying Well”, was published in Krakow and the author of the scene at the church in Binarowa could have known this publication. Binarowa’s representations of death as a skeleton with a scythe and Sudden Death with an arrow have their own literary patterns or references, since the motif of death and the transience of life was quite present in Polish Baroque literature. We can find numerous examples in the 2nd half of the 17th century; such as Jakub Teodor Trembecki’s poem (1643-1719 / 20) “Zegar bojaźni bożej” (“Clock of God’s Fear”), with a verse: “The clock is ticking, / your time is running out / Feel for yourself, the death bow hits you in the heart”, or “The clock is ticking, death is cutting down the tree of life / Woe betide you if virtue does not redeem you.” Although Trembecki was a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism; in 1675, he wrote down over 1,000 Polish and Latin poems and wrote “Wirydarz poetycki”, the most important historical anthology of 17th-century poetry. It included works such as “Śmierć nikim nie brakuje” (“Death misses nobody”) (“Death is common to everyone / It does not respect freedom, titles or dignity. / The poor will not find a shelter, / The rich will not pay, the soldier will not defend himself” and “Death touches both the sumptuous palace / And the rickety hut.”).

The structure of the altarpiece called the Altar of Four Holy Virgins was formed in the 14th century; in the 3rd quarter of that century such altarpieces were very popular in Silesia and, by the end of the century, they became popular in other areas as well. This type of altar would have a representation of the Virgin Mary in the middle, with four smaller figures of holy virgins on the sides. They were usually early Christian martyrs: in most cases St. Catherine of Alexandria, St. Barbara, St. Margaret and St. Dorothy.

In June 2010, the structure of the Binarowa church suffered some serious damage as a result of flooding. In order to stabilize it, it was necessary to tear off the flooring and remove nearly one metre of soil, which revealed 15th-century burials and 14th-century ceramic pottery (therefore, dating back earlier than the current church).