Kaplica Św. Rocha

A survivor of a vanished shrine complex

In 1680 the Church declared the woodland settlement of Łagiewniki a site of miracles, and the Franciscans took charge of a growing cult centred on St. Anthony of Padua. Around their monastery they built a set of six small wooden chapels. Only two have survived to the present day: the Chapel of St. Anthony, traditionally raised in 1676 from larch timber, and this Chapel of St. Roch, which followed in the early 18th century.↗↗↗

Local tradition holds that the builder, Samuel Żeleski, owner of Łagiewniki, erected the first shrine after his family experienced a vision of St. Anthony, and that the timber for these early structures came from a dismantled wooden church. Conservation work in the 2000s could not fully confirm that detail, but the chapel's origins are tied to the plague years — St. Roch and St. Sebastian were both invoked as protectors against epidemic, which is why they were often honoured together at places of cult.↗↗↗↗

What to look for in and around the chapel

The building itself is a gem of baroque sacred woodwork: a small rectangular hall in log construction, its walls clad in planks and its roof covered in shingles, topped by a hexagonal bellcote with a lantern and an onion-shaped helmet. The entrance sits in the gable end, and a shallow, suspended choir loft hangs over it. Set a little back from the road in a dip of the ground, the chapel feels half-hidden by the surrounding forest.↗↗

Inside, the baroque altar holds an image of St. Roch — easy to recognise, because he is accompanied by a dog, the saint being a patron of domestic animals and the sick — shown alongside Our Lady of Częstochowa. The original painted image was so badly damaged that today's panel is a reworking based on old black-and-white photographs. On the walls hang two votive plaques with painted illusionistic frames, depicting St. Ambrose, shown with bees, and St. Benon, and conservation work in 2007 uncovered architectural polychromy on the altar that had long been hidden.↗↗↗

Among the furnishings is a carved figure of the Risen Christ, once carried in processions, blessing with one hand and holding a banner in the other. Simple benches line the small interior, keeping the atmosphere intimate and devotional rather than museum-like.

Pilgrimage, nature and how it fits a day out

St. Roch's Chapel is still a working place of devotion. It was granted an apostolic privilege to confer a plenary indulgence on the feast of its patron, St. Roch, on 16 August, and the area has been a destination for pilgrims connected to the cult of St. Anthony since the 17th century. If you visit around mid-August, you are likely to find the shrine in its most lively setting.↗↗

Just as usefully, the chapel sits within the Łagiewniki Forest Nature Reserve, one of the large urban woodland complexes on Łódź's northern fringe, so it rewards walkers as much as worshippers. A yellow footpath runs past the chapels, and both can be seen from the trail, making the shrine a natural resting point on a forest ramble. A short stroll away stands the much larger, stone-baroque Franciscan church and monastery of Łagiewniki, the surviving heart of the sanctuary this little chapel once belonged to.↗↗↗