A handwritten message deliberately concealed inside a church pulpit more than 140 years ago has been discovered by conservators in Poland, revealing the names of the craftsmen and patrons behind the historic building.
The remarkable document came to light during conservation work on the pulpit at the parish church of St Stephen the Martyr in Ciachcin, central Poland.
Hidden in the lower section of the pulpit, the parchment had apparently remained undisturbed since the late 19th century.
Far from being an accidental scrap of paper, the document appears to have been deliberately placed there as a record for future generations — effectively creating a Victorian-era time capsule.
It was written by Father Józef Strusiński, who served as parish priest in Ciachcin for 27 years, between 1865 and 1892.
A message from 1884
The handwritten parchment records the completion of the church’s construction in 1884, as well as details about the creation of its main altar and pulpit.
Both were produced in Płock at the workshop of Marceli Leoniak, where craftsmen carried out carpentry, sculpture and gilding work for the church.
But Father Strusiński did considerably more than record when the building was finished. His message preserves the names of the people who actually created its elaborate interior.
Craftsmen involved in gilding, sculpture and carpentry are identified individually, along with apprentices who were learning gilding and sculpture while the pieces were being produced.
The document therefore offers an unusually personal glimpse behind the construction of the church, preserving the identities of workers whose contributions might otherwise have disappeared from the historical record.
The people who paid for the church
Father Strusiński also recorded the names of those who helped finance the work.
Among those mentioned are Antoni Klimkiewicz, associated with estates including Goślice, Ciachcin, Józinek and Żerań near Warsaw, and his wife, Józefa, née Bońkowska.
Together, the details make the parchment something approaching a birth certificate for the church — recording when major elements were completed, where they were made and who was responsible for creating them.
Its location suggests Father Strusiński intended that the record should survive alongside the object whose history it described.
More than a century later, that plan worked. Rather than removing the historic message permanently after its discovery, conservators documented and copied the parchment before returning the original to the place where it had been concealed.
But they added something of their own.
Alongside Father Strusiński’s 19th-century record, the conservators placed a new note documenting the conservation work carried out in the 21st century.
The pulpit now contains two messages from two different generations — each deliberately left for people in the future.
A copy of the original document has also been placed in the church archives, allowing the contents to be studied without repeatedly disturbing the historic parchment.
If the pulpit survives another century or more before undergoing major conservation again, its next restorers could encounter an unusual conversation across time: Father Strusiński’s account from the 1880s alongside the message left by the people who rediscovered it some 140 years later.
What began as routine conservation work has therefore revealed something more intimate than an artefact — a deliberate message from a priest who understood that preserving a historic building also meant preserving the names and stories of the people who created it.
Sources : Masovian Voivodeship Conservator of Monuments
