Interesting Sites Nearby
User Reviews
Protection of Our Most Holy Lady Church in Owczary, from the seventeenth-century, which together with different tserkvas is designated as part of the UNESCO Wooden tserkvas of the Carpathian region in Poland and Ukraine.
The tserkva in Owczary was raised in 1653. The tserkva is the second building of its type in this location - the first collapsed due to quicksand in its foundations. In 1701, the tserkva's chancery underwent extensive renovation, the tower was built in 1783 (built by meisters Dimitr Dekowekin and Teodor Rusinka), in 1870, the building was widened, to have equal measurements to that of the nave. In 1938, the tserkva's interior was decorated with a polychrome. After Operation Vistula, the tserkva was transferred to the Roman Catholic parish. After some of the displaced villagers came back to the village in 1956, the tserkva had also restarted Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church services. Since 1998, the tserkva began to function as a Roman Catholic-Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
References:The Externsteine (Extern stones) is a distinctive sandstone rock formation located in the Teutoburg Forest, near the town of Horn-Bad Meinberg. The formation is a tor consisting of several tall, narrow columns of rock which rise abruptly from the surrounding wooded hills. Archaeological excavations have yielded some Upper Paleolithic stone tools dating to about 10,700 BC from 9,600 BC.
In a popular tradition going back to an idea proposed to Hermann Hamelmann in 1564, the Externsteine are identified as a sacred site of the pagan Saxons, and the location of the Irminsul (sacral pillar-like object in German paganism) idol reportedly destroyed by Charlemagne; there is however no archaeological evidence that would confirm the site's use during the relevant period.
The stones were used as the site of a hermitage in the Middle Ages, and by at least the high medieval period were the site of a Christian chapel. The Externsteine relief is a medieval depiction of the Descent from the Cross. It remains controversial whether the site was already used for Christian worship in the 8th to early 10th centuries.
The Externsteine gained prominence when Völkisch and nationalistic scholars took an interest in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This interest peaked under the Nazi regime, when the Externsteine became a focus of nazi propaganda. Today, they remain a popular tourist destination and also continue to attract Neo-Pagans and Neo-Nazis.