Monastery

Franciscan monastery

     This year we are celebrating the 380th anniversary of the establishment of the Franciscan monastery In Osieczna. It was the first foundation of this order in the Province of Wielkopolska. So let us go back 400 years and trace the most important events in the history of the sanctuary.

Historical sources say that in the second half of the 16th and the first half of the 17th century Leszno was the centre of the religious dissident movement in Poland. Members of several denominations settled down in the town, including the Bohemian Brothers, Lutherans, Jews and Calvinists. All of them contributed to the development of the town. Trade, handicraft, textile manufacturing, shoemakers' workshops and a few printers flourished in the town. The dissidents formed such a strong denomination group that the existence of the Catholics was threatened - their number began to fall rapidly. The local rulers, who remained faithful to Catholicism, could not tolerate this situation.
Zofia Przyjemska took an oath that she would invite the Franciscans to her estate so that they would convert the dissenters to the old faith. Unfortunately, her death prevented her from implementing her plan. However, before she died, she managed to pledge her husband Adam, a Polish senator, to fulfil her oath.
Thus, the first Franciscan monks arrived in Osieczna on August 14, 1622 thanks to Adam Przyjemski. They came from Italy where there were colleges of this order. First they were staying in Olomouc, Bohemia. In the meantime Przyjemski obtained the consent of the Archbishop and King Zygmunt III Waza to the location of their seat near Leszno. First they lived in the castle, and the masses were celebrated in present O. Frankiewicza Street where a shrine now stands.

The order had already existed for four hundred years then. It was founded in Italy in 1209 by St. Francis of Assisi. In 1519, the order split as a result of a reform into two groups: Bernardines and Reformers. The latter adhered to stricter principles of conduct, and it was them who were invited to Osieczna.
Thirteen years after the arrival of the Reformers, the first votive offering was laid down in front of the miraculous picture of St. Mary the Dolorous with the Infant Jesus. During a retaliatory attack of the Swedes on Osieczna in 1655, the sanctuary did not suffer any harm. In 1691 Zofia Opalińska founded a monastery in its present shape, and in 1729-33 Józef Mycielski had a new baroque church built. The church was designed by the Italian architect Pompeo Ferrari, who was also the author of the Town Hall in Leszno. The present interior decorations of the church date from 1784-86.

The church has a precious rococo interior from 1784-87, carved in oak, with a natural colour of the wood. The altars contain four paintings by Franciszek Szmuglewicz from 1786.

The monastery in Osieczna has experienced two difficult moments in its history. The first occurred in 1834 when the Province of Wielkopolska was under Prussian rule and when the government liquidated the order. Then the Franciscans had to leave the monastery for a long time. At first the sanctuary remained closed, later it was administrated by the vicar of Osieczna. At the end of the 19th century, the buildings of the former monastery were the seat of a Priests' House under the supervision of the diocese. It was a place of residence of priests who for some reasons did not perform their duties properly - a sort of borstal for clergymen.

During the Wielkopolska Uprising in 1918-19, the monastery was occupied by the insurgents. After the won Battle of the Windmills, the monastery became the seat of the first Wielkopolska School for Non-Commissioned Officers, which functioned until 1921. When it was liquidated, the legitimate owners clamed their old property and regained it after six years.
The Franciscans returned to Osieczna in 1927, after almost 100 years of absence. Until the outbreak of World War II, the monastery was the seat of a Higher Theological Seminary. The brutal eviction of the monks by Gestapo in 1941 started the second critical period in the history of the sanctuary. The Nazis founded a labour camp for women, which was a branch of the prison in Rawicz. A total of 1600 women were imprisoned in the camp. Sixteen died and were buried in the garden of the monastery. The church served as a warehouse of raw materials during the war. The Franciscans returned to Osieczna three months after the liberation. An important event in the modern history of the monastery was the papal coronation of the miraculous painting of St. Mary the Dolorous by Jerzy Stroba on 5 August 1979 in the presence of bishops, a great number of clergymen and about 30,000 worshippers.

In March 1984, on Monday before Ash Wednesday, a fire broke out in the church, which destroyed the upper part of the altar. The renovation took two years. A visible trace of the tragedy from before 11 years is the partly burnt statue of the crucified Jesus, whose hands were almost completely damaged by the fire. The monks put them in showcases under the cross.
The miraculous painting of St. Mary the Dolorous with the Infant Jesus is a real magnet for crowds of tourists and pilgrims visiting the Franciscan monastery in Osieczna. The name of the painter is not known. The painting was in the church as early as in the first half of the 17th century. It might have been here since the very beginning of the existence of the church, i.e. 1622. We do not know exactly how it found itself in the church. It might have been brought by the fathers, somebody else could have ordered it and give to the Franciscans, it could also have been painted earlier and given to the church after the monks had arrived in Osieczna. The last version is the most probable. The type of St. Mary's picture shown in the painting is very rare. This is why it is very difficult to propose any hypotheses on the (even approximate) date of its creation and the name of its author. During the conservation works, the conservators discovered the Polish inscription "Dzieciątko Paniątko śpi snem zmorzone..." ("The Jesus Infant overcome with sleep… ") near the bottom frame. However, it cannot form a basis for the assumption that the picture was painted in Poland. Just as well it could have been made in an unknown foreign workshop, and the inscription could have added by a Polish artist. There are similar paintings in churches in Opole, Wieluń, Sanok, Oleśno, Koźmin, Bierawa (Province of Opole), Brzozów (Province of Podkarpacie), Wyszyna near Konin and the Osieczna Parish Church, and abroad in Salzburg and Innsbruck (Austria). It is certain that this type of painting was known in circles of Italian painters in the 15th century and in neighbouring countries at the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century. This presentation of characters was typical of such artists as Piero della Francesca, Alvise Vivarini, Benozzo Gozzoli and Tiberio of Assisi.

The painting of St. Mary the Dolorous with dimensions of 69.5 x 90.5 cm is situated in a side altar of the church. It was painted in oil on canvas. The picture shows St. Mary sitting up with sleeping Jesus. Mary is slightly turned to the left. Her head is inclined, her hands are folded in half and raised in a prayer gesture over the infant. She is wearing a dark pink dress and a blue overcoat with a red collar. The Madonna's head is covered with a white veil, which forms harmonious, soft folds on the sides, and her neck is surrounded with a white, delicate drapery. The artist showed St. Mary as a woman with a fair complexion (unlike in the famous picture of Jasna Góra) and hazel eyes. The Infant Jesus, who is partly uncovered, provides a contrast to the figure of his mother. He is sleeping with his head leaning on a vermillion red pillow, covered with a transparent textile; only his legs are covered with an intensely red drapery. The borders of both coverings are ornamented with white delicate lace. Like in many other sacred pictures, the head of the Infant is surrounded with a light halo. The little Jesus is clutching a black cross in his left outstretched hand. At the bottom of the painting we can see a bunch of flowers and the already mentioned inscription. Both the Madonna and the Infant Jesus have crowns on their heads.

If we look closer at the painting, we will observe a foreboding of future painful experiences on the Madonna's face (hence the title of the picture). The painter did not intend to show the Mother's affection to her child but to point out that St. Mary has already a vision of her son crucified on Calvary when he is still a child and feels the pain she will experience in the future.

Over the centuries, the painting was overpainted several times and was slightly damaged. Finally, the drawing and colouring of the picture were so distorted that they did not present the original image created by the artist. In 1973, the painting was sent to the Conservation Institute in Toruń to save it from total destruction. There experts carried out its conservation and restored the painting to its original state, i.e. from the 17th century. Thanks to these works, we can admire the picture in its best 17th century shape.

Photographs of the church and the monastery

View of the front of the church on the right, on the left fragment of the building of the monastery.

Interior of the church

Altar with the miraculous painting

^{Photographs: courtesy of Sławomir Skrobała}