Religious, Spiritual sights in Poland
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St Mary's Church
Rising over the northeastern corner of Rynek Główny, St Mary's is Kraków's most important church, after Wawel Cathedral. The original church, built in the 1220s, was destroyed during the Tatar raids, and the edifice you see today is a 15th-century creation. From the outside, the most striking feature of the church is its two towers, of unequal height.
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Church of St John of Jerusalem
One of the oldest brick churches in the country, this late-12th-century building was extended in the Gothic period and later acquired a baroque chapel. The interior contains beautiful Gothic star vaults, and the Romanesque doorway in the main western entrance is magnificent.
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St Mary's Church
Set in the middle of Main Town, St Mary's Church is believed to be the largest old brick church in the world. It is 105m long and 66m wide at the transept, and its massive squat tower is 78m high. About 25,000 people can be easily accommodated in its 5000-sq-metre (0.5-hectare) interior. It's a fascinating building to look at even from a few streets away, as its weathered red brickwork looms in a somewhat sinister manner over the much smaller, more thoroughly redecorated buildings at its feet.
The church was begun in 1343 and reached its present gigantic size in 1502. It served as the parish church for the Catholic congregation until the Reformation blew into Gdańsk, and …
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St Bridget's Church
Set immediately behind St Catherine's is St Bridget's Church. Founded 700 years ago, the building was almost completely destroyed in 1945, and until 1970 only the walls were left standing. There's almost nothing left of the prewar furnishings within, but amber fans will be interested in seeing the spectacular 174cm-high amber monstrance depicting the tree of life and the monumental high altar, a recent construction, which comprises a record-breaking 6500kg of the stuff.
Lech Wałęsa attended Mass here when he was an unknown electrician in the nearby shipyard. With the wave of strikes in 1980 the church became a strong supporter of the dockyard workers and its priest, Henr…
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St Catherine's Church
The largest monument of the Old Town is St Catherine's Church, which is the oldest church in Gdańsk, begun in the 1220s. It was the parish church for the whole town until St Mary's was completed. As is common, the church evolved over centuries and only reached its final shape in the mid-15th century (save for the Baroque top to the tower, added in 1634). The vaulted Gothic interior was originally covered with frescoes, fragments of which were discovered under a layer of plaster.
Note the huge painting (11m long) depicting the entry of Christ to Jerusalem, placed under the organ loft in the left-hand aisle, and the richly carved enclosure of the baptismal font (1585) in t…
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Church of Mary
A flight of 33 steps – Christ’s age when he was crucified – leads to the squat, 50m-wide façade of the Church of Mary, its palatial appearance underwritten by the complete absence of towers. The side entrance takes you into the square cloister running around the church, lined with chapels and Stations of the Cross; the walls are densely adorned with folk paintings of Mary and old votive pictures. In the chapel west of the main altar you’ll find a relic of one of Poland’s modern saints, Zygmunt Gorazdowski (1845–1920), a native of Polish Lwów (now Lviv in Ukraine) who fought in the 1863 uprising, despite severe pulmonary problems, and later become a pioneering pries…
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Parish Church
To the west, just off the Rynek, the metal front door of the 16th-century brick Parish Church depicts scenes from the city's 1000-year history. Within is a gilded Baroque high altar with a 1466 painting of the Virgin Mary. What's really surprising, however, is the church's colour scheme - its interior is done out in vivid purple and orange shades that would have appealed to adherents of 1960s flower power.
You may want to keep your sunglasses on! The illustrations on the walls date from the 1920s when the church was redecorated, having been commandeered in the 19th century for use as storage by various passing military forces.
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Church of the Holy Trinity
Built a decade or two after the St Procopius' Church, the larger Church of the Holy Trinity acquired a Gothic vault in the 14th century and a baroque façade four centuries later. The interior is a remarkably harmonious composition of baroque furnishings, Gothic vaulting and four original Romanesque columns. These columns, revealed only during postwar restoration, are the most precious treasure of the church, particularly the two with elaborate figurative designs. There are 18 figures carved in each column; those on the left-hand column personify vices, while those on the right are virtues.
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St Adalbert's Church
Its 16th-century, freestanding wooden belfry is the only substantial historic wooden building in Poznań. Inside the church, the Gothic vaulting is decorated with striking Art Nouveau wall paintings. The crypt beneath, open to visitors, has become a mausoleum for the most eminent Poles from Wielkopolska, among them Józef Wybicki, who wrote the lyrics of the national anthem.
During the Christmas period, the mechanised szopka (Nativity scene) is open in the church. It includes several dozen movable figures that depict the history of the region, from Mieszko I to the present day.
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Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels
The original hilltop church north of the centre was gradually enlarged and today is the massive Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels. The holiest image in the church is the icon of Mary in the Zebrzydowska Chapel (Kaplica Zebrzydowska) to the left of the high altar. Tradition has it that the eyes shed tears of blood in 1641, and from that time miracles occurred.
Pilgrims flock to Kalwaria year-round but especially on Marian feast days, when processions along the Calvary Trails (Dróżki Kalwaryjskie) linking the chapels take place.
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St Anne’s Church
St Anne’s Church is arguably the most ornate church in the city. It miraculously escaped major damage during WWII, which explains why it sports an original trompe l’œil ceiling, a Rococo high altar and gorgeous organ. The façade is also Baroque in style, although there are neoclassical touches here and there, and the detached belfry is thoroughly neo-Renaissance. At the top of the belfry is a viewing platform, which offers superb views over the Old Town.
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Royal Chapel
Just to the north and completely overshadowed by St Mary's Church, sits the small Royal Chapel, squeezed between two houses. The only Baroque church in old Gdańsk, it was built between 1678 and 1681 to fulfil the last will of the primate of Poland of the time, Andrzej Olszowski. It was designed by famous royal architect Tylman van Gameren. Its façade is its more attractive feature, and bears the coats of arms of Poland, Lithuania and King Jan III Sobieski (the founder of the chapel).
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St John’s Cathedral
Back towards Castle Sq stands the restored neo-Gothic façade of St John’s Cathedral. The oldest of Warsaw’s churches, it was built at the beginning of the 15th century on the site of a wooden church, and subsequently remodelled several times. Razed during WWII, it regained its Gothic shape through postwar reconstruction. Look for the red-marble Renaissance tomb of the last dukes of Mazovia in the right-hand aisle.
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Parish Church of the Holy Family
At the northern end of ul Krupówki is the neo-Romanesque Parish Church of the Holy Family , which looks as though it has been imported from suburban Boston in the USA. It was built at the end of the 19th century when the wooden Old Church, 200m to the west and dating from 1851, could no longer cope with the numbers of worshippers. The Old Church has charming carved wooden decorations and pews, and Stations of the Cross painted on glass.
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Cathedral of Christ the King
Some 800m south of the Rynek is the Cathedral of Christ the King, Poland’s largest cathedral, measuring 89m by 53m. The massive sandstone structure was erected between 1927 and 1955. The spacious interior is topped with a large dome rising 59m from the floor, but apart from colourful stained-glass windows and an unusual ‘wheel’ crucifix it’s fairly plain.
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Parish Church
The 14th-century parish church is a large Gothic brick construction with a tall square tower. It was refurnished and redecorated in the 1820s after fires that devastated much of the centre, and has a harmonious though not outstanding interior. If you’d like a birds-eye view of the town with the castle as a backdrop, ascend the church’s tower.
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Former Jewish District
The vast area of the Mirów and Muranów districts was once predominantly inhabited by Jewish Poles. During WWII the Nazis established a Jewish ghetto in the area, but razed it to the ground after crushing the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in April 1943. A walking tour of Jewish sites is detailed in the free pamphlet, Jewish Warsaw, available from tourist offices.
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Convent & Church
A convent and a church are hidden among woods on top of the hill. The 18th-century timber church went up in flames in 1990, but it was rebuilt in a similar shape to the previous one. The convent is more recent, established in the aftermath of WWII in an effort to gather all the nuns, scattered throughout the country, from the five convents that had existed before the war.
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St Nicholas’ Church
The St Nicholas’ Church dates from the 13th century and was originally Gothic, but has been modernised several times. The painting of the Descent from the Cross over the high altar is a copy. The original, painted in Rubens’ workshop in about 1617 and donated to the church, was burnt or stolen during a mysterious fire in 1973.
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St Mary’s Church
The third great Gothic structure in the old town is St Mary’s Church, erected by the Franciscans at the end of the 13th century. Austere and plain from the outside, it has a lofty interior with tall, intricate stained-glass windows and a prominent golden altarpiece, framed by a wooden archway depicting a complete crucifixion scene.
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Bethlehem Crèche
East of the church you’ll find the Bethlehem Crèche, a set of mechanised Nativity scenes. The main one includes 800 tiny figurines carved from lime wood, 300 of which move. Other scenes portray the Crucifixion, the Last Supper and the Massacre of the Holy Innocents. The crèche took a local craftsman 28 years to carve.
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St Procopius’ Church
Built of red stone in around 1150, St Procopius’ Church has preserved its austere Romanesque form remarkably well, even though its upper part was rebuilt in brick after damage in the 18th century. The interior, almost free of decoration, looks admirably authentic. By the entrance is the original 12th-century font.
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Cathedral
Today Ostrów Tumski is a tiny, quiet ecclesiastical quarter radiating an air of history, dominated by Poznań's monumental, double-towered Cathedral . Basically Gothic with additions from later periods, most notably the baroque tops of the towers, the cathedral was badly damaged in 1945 and took 11 years to rebuild.
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Collegiate Church
The early-12th-century stone Romanesque collegiate church was altered in later periods but returned more or less to its original form during postwar restoration. The interior fittings include the 12th-century baptismal font. The church is on the northeastern outskirts of town, an 800m walk from the Rynek.
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Collegiate Church
The Collegiate Church is a typical example of a lavish Catholic church, built in 1353 and rebuilt in the 18th century. It boasts a baroque interior flooded with gilt and glitter and is a popular pilgrimage site thanks to an allegedly miraculous picture of the Holy Family, dating from the 17th century.
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