To reach the Church of Our Lady’s Protection in Owczary, you need to take a winding side road until the end of a long valley cleaving the Beskidy Mountains. Your effort will be magnificently rewarded: the church is famous as one of the most beautiful historic Lemko churches (its only elder sisters are the ones in Kwiatoń and Powroźnik, also inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2013). You enter the nave, being the most ancient part of the structure, through a portal cut intriguingly over your head into an ogee arch (here called a “donkey’s back”), with the church erection date AD 1653 above. The remaining sections were altered in the 18th century, yet the structural division into the sanctuary, nave, and porch crouching below the tower, characteristic of the Lemko style, still remains visible. The precious treasure of the church, shared today by the Roman and Greek Catholic parishes, is its complete furnishing. Take a look therefore at the 18th-century iconostasis, which sparkles with blue, red, and gold, at the openwork columns adding to its beauty, the meticulously sculpted vines, and the icons with painted saints looking back at you.

The church is part of the Małopolska Wooden Architecture Route.