o projekcie
A baroque Dominican monastery complex whose integral part is the Church of St Nicholas in Kamianets-Podilskyi, dating back to the early 17thcentury, around one hundred years after the Dominicans appeared in this region. Fate has been often much against the site. It had to be reconstructed several times in the 17thand 18thcenturies due to war damage and fires. In the second half of the 17thcentury, when Turks laid siege to Kamianets-Podilskyi, the church was converted into a mosque. In 1843, as a result of the dissolution of monasteries under the Russian Partition, it started operating as a parish church. After WWII it was taken from the faithful and transformed into an NKVD jail and archive. The fire of 1993 contributed to the degradation of the building’s original structure, the surviving paintwork, and the features found inside the church. In the 1990s, the church was given back to the faithful. Since 1998 it has been taken care of by the Pauline Fathers ministering to the local communities.
The restoration and conservation of the church are one of the biggest challenges to the Foundation. The degree of damage and the extent of work necessary to be done will make the project take many years to complete.
In 2018, as part of the next stage of conservation works, the décor of the Chapel of St Dominic was reintegrated, which made the place become coherent in its appearance, corresponding to the original one.
The said works were carried out by three conservation teams managed by Ewa Święcka, PhD.
The project was financed from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage’s Culture Promotion Fund.
Another stage of conservation works was completed in 2017. The décor of the Chapel of St Dominic was reintegrated, the painting decorations under the vault of the Chapel of Crucified Jesus Christ were restored, the lower part of the portal leading to the Chapel of Our Lady of the Rosary was conserved, and the plaster and moulding in the arcades connecting the central nave with the north nave were restored.
The said works were carried out by three conservation teams managed by: Ewa Święcka, PhD (works in the Chapel of St Dominic), Anna Kudzia (plasterwork and moulding restoration), and Maria Podkowińska-Lulkiewicz, PhD (works in the Chapel of Crucified Christ and in the arcades connecting the central nave with the north nave).
All of the tasks were carried out thanks to the financial support provided to the Foundation by the Senate of the Republic of Poland as part of an order for supporting the Polish Diaspora and Poles abroad in 2017, and thanks to the funds of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, granted as part of the “Protection of Cultural Heritage Abroad” programme.
In 2016, Damian Pisarski, pursuing his scholarship programme in the Church of St Nicholas in Kamianets-Podilskyi, finished the conservation of the church portal and defended his diploma project.
But the remaining conservation-restoration works carried out inside the building were still underway. The last stage of works involving smoothing the moulding elements ended. Gilding of decorative details continued, combined with preparing the surfaces of walls for laying another colour layer referring to the original one – destroyed in the course of time. Further works were inspired by the preserved and still visible fragments of polychromes.
The project was carried out by three teams managed by: Ewa Święcka (paintings in the chapel), Anna Kudzia (portals in the central nave), and Patrycja Jarmołowicz (colour layers in the central nave).
In the period 2013–2016, the project was financed from the Minister of Foreign Affair’s resources granted to the Association of Academic Traditions (the Foundation’s partner) as part of the competition entitled “Cooperation with Polish Diaspora and Poles Abroad” as well as from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage’s funds provided as part of the “Cultural Heritage” programme, priority: “Protection of Cultural Heritage Abroad”.
In 2015, a range of works to preserve the paintings in the Chapel of St Dominic and to conserve and restore the moulding on the vault of the central nave of the church was carried out.
The project was financed from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage’s funds granted as part of the “Cultural Heritage” programme, priority: “Protection of Cultural Heritage Abroad”, and from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ resources provided as part of the programme entitled “Cooperation with Polish Diaspora and Poles Abroad in 2015”.
A member of the conservation team was also Damian Pisarski, the Foundation’s scholarship holder. His engagement in restoring the portal in the right side chapel of the church was part of his scholarship obtained to develop his graduation work to be presented at the Faculty of Conservation and Restoration of Works of Art at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.
Since 2012 the Cultural Heritage Foundation has been carrying out various long-term conservation works in the church in Kamianets-Podilskyi. The first stage of those works was a joint effort of the Foundation and the Association of Academic Traditions. In 2013 and 2014, these efforts were focused on the restoration of one aisle and two side chapels.
We managed to restore the plasterwork and the neo-Rococo moulding in the central nave and the paintwork layers stretching below the vault. The conservators concentrated also on preserving and securing the 18th-century paintings in the Chapel of St Dominic – the only works of art which partially survived the 1993 fire. The Chapel of Crucified Jesus Christ had, in turn, elements of its stone ornamentation restored. Also in 2014, the structure of the Chapel of St Dominic was repaired.
The project was carried out by three conservation teams.
- The team entrusted with the restoration of paintings in the Chapel of St Dominic was managed by Ewa Święcka, PhD, and composed of: Marta Maciąga, Małgorzata Matławska, Anna Stepkowska, and Justyna Szczepańska-Baranowska.
- The team working in the Chapel of Crucified Jesus Christ and dealing with the plasterwork and moulding in the central nave was managed by Janusz Smaza, PhD, and composed of: Marta Butkiewicz, Witold Butkiewicz, Paulina Gajos-Stopiska, Anna Kudzia, Piotr Maślanka, Magdalena Olszowska, Dariusz Pisarski, and Dominika Popek.
- The team engaged in restoring the colour scheme of the paintwork layers in the central nave was managed by Maria Podkowińska-Lulkiewicz, PhD, and composed of: Sylwia Jakubowska and Patrycja Jarmołowicz.
The repair works covering the structure of the Chapel of St Dominic were carried out by Pracowania Konserwacji Obiektów Zabytkowych Arkadiusz Ostasz under the supervision of Roman Paruch, MSc Eng.
