St. Paraskevi Church in Radruż is a Gothic,

wooden Wood is a structural tissue/material found as xylem in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulosic fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin t ...

church from the sixteenth-century located in the village of Radruż, Poland, which together with different '' tserkvas'' is designated as part of the

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO ) is a List of specialized agencies of the United Nations, specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) with the aim of promoting world peace and International secur ...

Wooden tserkvas of the Carpathian region in Poland and Ukraine Wood is a structural tissue/material found as xylem in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulosic fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of ligni ...

. The ''tserkva'' belongs to the oldest and best kept wooden sacramental architecture ''tserkvas'' in

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

. Part of the prestigious

World Monuments Fund World Monuments Fund (WMF) is a private, international, non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of historic architecture and cultural heritage sites around the world through fieldwork, advocacy, grantmaking, education, and training ...

(WMF) list of buildings worthy of preservation and financial sponsorship. The tserkva is located on an oval hill, by the ''Radrużka'' stream, and together with the

bell tower A bell tower is a tower that contains one or more bells, or that is designed to hold bells even if it has none. Such a tower commonly serves as part of a Christian church, and will contain church bells, but there are also many secular bell to ...

is surrounded by a wall (existent from 1825), with a fortification structure. The tserkva's structure is constructed out of a

fir Firs are evergreen coniferous trees belonging to the genus ''Abies'' () in the family Pinaceae. There are approximately 48–65 extant species, found on mountains throughout much of North and Central America, Eurasia, and North Africa. The genu ...

and

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

framework A framework is a generic term commonly referring to an essential supporting structure which other things are built on top of. Framework may refer to: Computing * Application framework, used to implement the structure of an application for an op ...

. The tserkva was most likely funded by poseł to

Sejm The Sejm (), officially known as the Sejm of the Republic of Poland (), is the lower house of the bicameralism, bicameral parliament of Poland. The Sejm has been the highest governing body of the Third Polish Republic since the Polish People' ...

, and

starosta Starosta or starost (Cyrillic: ''старост/а'', Latin: ''capitaneus'', ) is a community elder in some Slavic lands. The Slavic root of "starost" translates as "senior". Since the Middle Ages, it has designated an official in a leadersh ...

Jan Płaza (died 1599). While being used for sacramental services, the tserkva was also used as a fortress against the invasions by the Tatars.

References

External links

* {{World Heritage Sites in Poland World Heritage Sites in Poland 16th-century churches in Poland Churches in Subcarpathian Voivodeship Gothic architecture in Poland Lubaczów County Wooden tserkvas of Carpathian region in Poland and Ukraine