OBRA
A village on the Obra, located ca. 8 km south-west of Wolsztyn, by the road to Nowa-Sól.
The existing church was built between 1722 and 1757, to the design by Jan Catenazzi. By the middle of 18th century, completed was also the construction of a monastery for Cistercian friars who had first come over into the place in the Middle Ages. Before then, ca. 1724, an abbot’s court had emerged. 1796 saw the Prussian authorities confiscate landed properties belonging to Cistercians; the monastery was eventually abolished in 1835. The year after, the former monastery temple was turned into a parish church. Jesuits stayed at the monastery for a short time, between 1852 and 1854. A house for retired clergymen was established at the monastery building in 1904.
In 1926, oblates arrived in Obra and set up a theological seminary there. During World War 2, a police school and then, a hospital was installed at the monastery facilities. The monks were back in Obra again in 1945; soon after, education-related activity was resumed. Today, the Tertiary Theological Seminary is a section of the Department of Theology, ‘Adam Mickiewicz’ University of Poznań.
The late-baroque Church of Our Lady and Jacob the Apostle is a single-nave building with a slightly narrowed presbytery. It has two not-quite-tall towers embedded in its façade. The interior is covered by sail vaults, embellished with a polychrome made in 1753/1754 by Stanisław Brzozowski. The interior’s rococo and early-classical appurtenances date back to the latter half of 18th century. The main altar, made in 1755 in the rococo style, features in its central section a painting The Assumption of Our Lady, a work by Szymon Czechowicz.
The monastery building’s three wings are adjacent to the church at the south, forming a quadrate cloister garth surrounded by an ambulatory. The cloister’s most interesting interior is the vestry, equipped with rococo furniture. A baroque statue of St. John Nepomucene of 1749 stands in front of the church façade; the former abbot’s court is situated somewhat aside.
Wyższe Seminarium Duchowne Misjonarzy Oblatów [The Tertiary Theological Seminary of Missionary Oblates]
ul. Szkolna 12
64-211 Obra
Tel. +48 68 384 12 97
