The Church of Christ the Savior in Podgórze — a former church of an Orthodox, and later Uniate, monastery of the Transfiguration of the Lord. Before World War II, the village was called Spas, and this name still explains the origin of the church. Podgórze is a tiny village in the gmina of Chełm, about 8 km west of Chełm, near Stolpy and its medieval tower. The monastery church is one of the oldest in the Chełm region, although its current appearance dates from the 17th century.
Monastery in Spas
A male Orthodox monastery in Spas existed already before 1440. The Uniate bishop Yakiv Susha recorded a legend that the church was rebuilt from a pagan temple or a defensive tower. Researchers believe there may be some truth to this: the nave is made of stone and its dimensions resemble the tower in Belawin near Chełm, and before the 19th-century reconstruction it had high-set windows similar to loopholes. Thus, the walls could have been built as early as the 12th–13th centuries, but exactly when the building became a church is unknown.
The monastery did not immediately accept the Brest Union: in 1622 it was forcibly taken over by the Uniates. In the second half of the 17th century, the church was rebuilt and then acquired its current form. After 1723, when the number of monks decreased, the monastery was closed, and the church became a parish church.
From Church to Catholic Church
In 1864 or 1866, the church was returned to the Orthodox and was seriously rebuilt. In restored Poland, after a sharp dispute between local Orthodox and Catholics, it was transferred to the Roman Catholics; this was finalized in 1924, and since then it has been a parish Catholic church.
The building is Baroque, single-nave, with a presbytery of the same height and two sacristies. Corner diagonal buttresses were added in the 18th century. Inside is Classicist polychromy from the first half of the 19th century; on the ceiling is a plafond with the Holy Trinity; in the main altar there is a large cross and an image of Our Lady of Częstochowa, and in the side altars— the Baptism of the Lord and an icon of the Mother of God with the Child. Nearby stands a brick bell tower from the late 19th – early 20th century in the Russian-Byzantine style, and near the village is an Orthodox cemetery from the late 18th century.
How to get there
Podgórze lies slightly south of road No. 12 Chełm – Lublin, about 8 km from the center of Chełm. It is most convenient to combine the trip with a visit to the tower in Stolpy, about one and a half kilometers away. The article about Chełm covers Danilo’s castle, the cathedral, and Vysoka Hirka. More about the region is in the article “Polish Polissia: what to see beyond the Bug”. The church is a parish one, so the most reliable way to get inside is before the Sunday service. This is Poland: citizens of Ukraine need a foreign passport.
