Kargów can be understood through several religious landmarks: the church with its medieval history, the statue of St. Joseph at a crossroads and a stone Pietà on the road to Bosowice. These monuments represent different ways of orienting oneself in history. The church is associated with early records and later building phases, the statue of St. Joseph with a precisely named anniversary, and the Pietà with an artwork that has a local name. Together, they paint a multifaceted yet clearly distinguishable picture of the town’s religious history.

Church: early record and later building phases

The first recorded mention of a church and parish in Kargów dates from 1326. This date marks the earliest recorded mention, not necessarily the year the stone church was built. The historian Bartosz Paprocki recounts a later building history: according to his account, in the 1360s King Casimir the Great had a stone church built in Kargów to replace a wooden church, as penance for the murder of the priest Baryczka. Paprocki’s account thus mentions both the change in building material and the act of penance associated with the construction. After the Second World War, the church was altered during its reconstruction following war damage. The early record, the reported construction and the postwar alterations therefore belong to three different phases of the town’s history.

Statue of St. Joseph at a road junction

The statue of St. Joseph holding the infant Jesus stands on a hill several metres high at the junction of the roads to Tuczępy and Stopnica. It was erected in 1921 to mark the 50th anniversary of St. Joseph’s appointment as patron of the universal Church. The year links the date of the statue’s erection to a church anniversary. The hill and the road destinations establish its location; the anniversary explains why it was erected. In the town’s history, it is therefore both a specific landmark in the streetscape and a dated sign of religious remembrance.

The Pietà “Pod Męką”

A stone-carved Pietà stands on the road between Kargów and Bosowice and is locally known as “Pod Męką”. Unlike the statue of St. Joseph, its key distinguishing features are the Pietà motif, the stone material and its location on the road between the two towns. The local name adds a local designation to this description of its location. “Pod Męką” can thus be distinguished as a separate artwork from the statue of St. Joseph: they depict two different subjects and have two specifically distinct locations.

Putting dates and locations into context

When planning a history-focused stay, it is worth considering the different purposes of these details. 1326 is the date of the first recorded mention of the church and parish; the 1360s belong to Paprocki’s account of the construction of the stone church. By contrast, 1921 marks the erection of the statue of St. Joseph and its anniversary, while the alterations following the war damage took place after the Second World War. The locations also differ: the statue of St. Joseph stands at a road junction, and the Pietà is on a road between two towns. If you are interested in Kargów’s religious history, these distinctions help keep the building history, commemorative occasion and location separate.

Discover more destinations: Balice, Konary, Stopnica, Solec-Zdrój, Mietel, Zielonki, Janina, Busko-Zdrój

For the overview of the wider area: Buski.