Szlaki województw śląskiego i opolskiego

The church in Olszowa is one of three wooden churches of the parish of St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Klucz. These temples have a uniform appearance that distinguishes them from among the numerous wooden temples of the Opole province. The distinguishing feature is a low tower embedded in the structure. Olszowa was founded in the thirteenth century, and the first mention from 1302 lists it among the villages obliged to pay tithes to the Cistercians of Jemielnca. A church stood here already in the seventeenth century, originally under the dedication of St. Hedwig, and its present form was given in 1748. The temple is located on the eastern edge of the village, on a rectangular cemetery surrounded by a wall. It is a Baroque wooden church built in log-cabin construction with a post tower. The plan includes a broader nave in a nearly square layout, a presbytery closed off on three sides, a tower from the west, and a sacristy with a choir loft on the upper floor from the north. The dominant element is a polygonal tower for the bell. The roofs are covered with shingles, the elevations are sheathed with vertical boards. Inside, on the rood beam, there is a Baroque Crucifixion group. The furnishings include a Baroque main altar with an image of Our Lady of Snow adored by angels, seventeenth-century side altars, and a Neoclassical pulpit from the nineteenth century with images of the four Evangelists. The oldest element of the furnishings is a sixteenth-century stone holy water basin.