The International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS), advisory body to the World Heritage Committee, issued a positive recommendation for the application for adding to the UNESCO List of World Heritage Sites of wooden churches in the Polish and Ukrainian Carpathian region and the extension of the Wieliczka Salt Mine entry to include mines in Bochnia and the Saltworks Castle in Wieliczka - told PAP Wioletta Łabuda-Iwaniak, spokeswoman for the National Heritage Board of Poland.
Poland and Ukraine applied for adding 16 churches. Eight of them are located in Poland. These are the churches of St. Paraskeva in Radruż, Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Chotyniec, St. Archangel Michael in Smolnik, St. Archangel Michael in Turzańsk (all in Podkarpacie), and in Małopolska the churches of St. James the Younger the Apostle in Powroźnik, the Mother of God in Owczary Care, St. Paraskeva in Kwiatoń, St. Archangel Michael in Brunary Wyżne. On the Ukrainian side eight temples have been selected in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Carpathian region.
"The selected churches are located in the northern zone of the Western Carpathians. The oldest wooden churches in the Polish and Ukrainian Carpathians are from the sixteenth century. These temples are the finest achievements of wooden architecture of the Orthodox Church of their time, and to this day they amaze with complex structural solutions" - reads the National Heritage Board of Poland release.
The variety of forms and types, excellence of woodwork design solutions and diversity of style distinguishes wooden Orthodox Church building in the Polish and the Ukrainian Carpathians from the wooden church buildings in the rest of Europe.
The applications for adding the church to the list is the result of several years of cooperation of the National Heritage Board of Poland with representatives of the Ukraine: State Historical-Architectural Reserve in Zolkiew and Scientific-Research Heritage Institute in Kiev.
ICOMOS also gave positive recommendation to the proposal to extend the Wieliczka Salt Mine entry to include mines in Bochnia and Wieliczka Saltworks Castle under the name of "Royal Salt Mines in Wieliczka and Bochnia". The initiator was the management of the salt mine in Bochni in close cooperation with the management of the salt mine in Wieliczka and the Wieliczka Salt Mine Museum. The National Heritage Board of Poland coordinated the preparation and supervised the content of the application.
Decision on entry into the World Heritage List will be made at 37th session of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, which will be held on 16-27 June in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.
PAP - Science and Scholarship in Poland
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