Lipscy herbu Grabie w świetle źródeł epigraficznych w kolegiacie w Choczu

Abstract

The bishop of Cracow Andrew Lipski bought a little town Chocz in 1620. In 1629 he started to build a church, there. This church was promoted to the collegiate church rank. The walls of collegiate church adjoined to the master of Chocz residence - the mitred prelate’s palace (now there ia a presbytery). Bishop Andrew Lipski provided in the fundation's act (with approval of king Zygmunt III Vasa and pope Urban VIII) that in the future only the members of the Lipski of Grabie arms family or people close related to them will be parish-priests. The epigraphical relics brought together in the church and old mitred - prelates's palace indirectly testify to ancestral character of this church institution. This above-mentioned institution functioned in the private possesions and it never has been the possesion of Catholic church. The gallery of pictures in Low relief of fundator and following Chocz provosts deserves special notice. These portraits were made to parish-priest Kazimierz Lipski's order (in the palace's guest-hall). The busts and after-mentioned inscriptions we should treat as a manifestation of the ancestral programme - the artistic exposition of ancestral fundation's history. The effigies and comanurent inscriptions were probably made after the example of the mitred-prelates’s portraits still ex tan ted in the 18th century. Now, only in the instance of Stanislaw Lipski's bust, we can its prototype - the oil-painting picture from 1711 which is preserved in the mitred-prelates old palace. These inscriptions informed about the past of peoples connected with the collegiate church. The activity of bishop A. Lipski is commemorated by two inscriptions from the 17th century. They tell us about fundator and the one them informed of the likely date of the church building’s end. Stanisław Lipski presented all of his cash to the collegiate church in Chocz and his own ornaments. The chalice, with inscription which indicated its original owner and date of production is the trace of that distant donation. The donation of John Alexander Liptki waa the monstrance. Apart from the information about donor we find informations about goldsmith and date of its origin. The most of inscriptions were made during the reconstruction of church «nH palace when Kazimierz Lipski was the parish-priest in Chocz. These inscriptions commemorate personage of that resourceful administrator. Apart from the remembrances of prorosts from Chocz there are preserved two portraits of Polish noblemen: - the portrait of Andrew Lipeki - the elder brother of bishop John Alexander Lipeki and the portrait of Thomas Lipeki - father of parish-priest Kazimierz. The collection of epigraphical relics, portraits and Low - reliefs and the little belonging to the Chocz's provosts — „prepositus hereditarius in Chocz Lipscensis” convinced us of serious treatment of fundation's resolutions. This collection calls our attention to the exceptional ancestral character of that church institution.