Church of st. Cross in Wieliczka in comparison with the twelth and thirteenth-century single nave sacral structures in central and eastern Europe

The remnants of the Romanesque church of St. Cross were uncovered during the archaeological excavations carried out in the years 1960—1961 and in year 1966. They are located in the north-western part of the present-day Adam Mickiewicz Park in Wieliczka, in the area of the medieval village, called Gorzec, located west of the town. The temple served as a hospital church, designed for the poorest inhabitants of “Wielicza Sól” (the original name of Wieliczka). Based on the negatives of the foundations it was found that it was a single nave building with the apse from the east, classified in the group of many Polish churches often constructed in the twelfth and thirteen centuries. Outside Poland, the church in Wieliczka can be compared closest to the twelfth and thirteenth-century single nave churches in the Czech Republic, in present-day Slovakia and in Hungary. The described above architectural type in the mentioned countries in Central and Eastern Europe evolved from the central building – a rotunda, functioning a fortified town, magnate, graveyard and parish churches. There is a possibility that the church of St. Cross was erected by the building workshop employed in the construction of the Church of St. Mary Magdalene and St. Nicholas in Dziekanowice, near Wieliczka, which has also a single nave and is similarly dated. Unfortunately, due to lack of resources, this question remains unclear and similarly the questions about the architectural detail, sculptural decoration or polychrome the used in the temple from Wieliczka