Religious sites in Poland
Trzebnica Abbey
Sanctuary of St. Jadwiga, also Trzebnica Abbey, is a convent for Cistercian nuns founded in 1203. The abbey was established by the Silesian Piast duke Henry I the Bearded and his wife Saint Hedwig of Andechs, confirmed by Pope Innocent III. With Hedwig"s consent, her brother Ekbert of Andechs, then Bishop of Bamberg, chose the first nuns that occupied the convent. The first abbess was Petrussa from Kitzingen Abbey; s ...
Founded: 1203 |
Location:
Trzebnica, Poland
Frombork Cathedral
The Archcathedral Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Saint Andrew in Frombork was constructed during 1329-1388. The astronomer and mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus worked there as a canon (1512–16 and 1522–43). He wrote his epochal work, De revolutionibus orbium cœlestium in Frombork. Shortly after its 1543 publication, Copernicus died there and was buried in the cathedral where his grave was ...
Founded: 1329-1388 |
Location:
Frombork, Poland
Oswiecim Chapel
The Oświęcim Chapel, dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Stanislaus of Szczepanów, is an extension to the Gothic Franciscan Church in Krosno. Founded in 1647–1648 by a prominent representative of the Oświęcim family, it is also commonly known as the 'Chapel of Love'. Associated with the romantic legend of Stanisław Oświęcim"s love for his sister Anna, the building is one of the finest art ...
Founded: 1647 |
Location:
Krosno, Poland
Kalwaria Zebrzydowska Park
Kalwaria Zebrzydowska park is a Mannerist architectural and park landscape complex and pilgrimage park, built in the 17th century as the Counter Reformation in the late 16th century led to prosperity in the creation of Calvaries in Catholic Europe. The park was added in 1999 to the UNESCO list of World Heritage Sites. This extraordinary testimony of piety and culture was the first of the large-scale Calvaries built in ...
Founded: 1600 |
Location:
Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, Poland
Pelplin Abbey
Pelplin Abbey is a former Cistercian abbey founded in 1258 by Sambor II, Duke of Pomerania. It was a daughter house of the Cistercian Doberan Abbey. It was first sited in Pogódki (Pogutken) near Kościerzyna (Berent) and re-located in 1276 to Pelplin. By decree of the Prussian government of 5 March 1823 it was dissolved. Since 1824 the church, as Pelpin Cathedral, has been the cathedral of the Roman Catholic Diocese of P ...
Founded: 1258 |
Location:
Pelplin, Poland
St. Mary's Cathedral
Koszalin’s most distinctive landmark is St. Mary"s Cathedral (Katedra Niepokalanego Poczecia N.M.P), a Gothic church erected between 1300-1333. Initially serving as a Catholic church, the building was from the 16th century till the end of World War II a temple for the Protestant faith. Since 1945 it again is a Catholic house of worship.
Founded: 1300-1333 |
Location:
Koszalin, Poland
Swidnica Church of Peace
The Churches of Peace in Jawor and Świdnica, the largest timber-framed religious buildings in Europe, were built in the former Silesia in the mid-17th century, amid the religious strife that followed the Peace of Westphalia. Constrained by the physical and political conditions, the Churches of Peace bear testimony to the quest for religious freedom and are a rare expression of Lutheran ideology in an idiom generally asso ...
Founded: 1656-1657 |
Location:
Świdnica, Poland
Basilica of St. James and St. Agnes
The Basilica of St. James and St. Agnes is a basilica minor in Nysa. It is the largest sacramental building in the town, and historically cultural site of the town. The basilica was built on the turning point of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, in the area known as the New Town. It was the first parish church, raised in between 1195 and 1198, consecrated by Wrocław"s Jarosław Bishop in 1198. The cur ...
Founded: 1195/1392 |
Location:
Nysa, Poland
Lubiaz Abbey
Lubiąż Abbey, also commonly known as Leubus Abbey, is a former Cistercian monastery. The abbey, established in 1175, is one of the largest Christian architectural complexes in the world and is considered a masterpiece of Baroque Silesian architecture. The abbey is situated near a ford across the Oder river, where a Benedictine monastery and church of Saint James may have been established about 1150, but had already bee ...
Founded: 1175 |
Location:
Lubiąż, Poland
Gniezno Cathedral
The Royal Gniezno Cathedral served as the coronation place for several Polish monarchs and as the seat of Polish church officials continuously for nearly 1000 years. Throughout its long and tragic history, the building stayed mostly intact making it one of the oldest and most precious sacral monuments in Poland. The cathedral played an outstanding role in the history of Poland, serving as the stronghold capital of the f ...
Founded: 11th century |
Location:
Gniezno, Poland
Church of the Poor Clares
Church of the Poor Clares is a red brick Gothic church with a few Renaissance touches built between 1582 and 1602 on the site of a previous wooden church and hospital. Officially named the Church of the Ascension of the Virgin Mary, it is known locally as the Church of the Poor Clares as it was the home of the Order of the Poor Clares from 1619 until 1835. The building was turned into a warehouse and later a fire station ...
Founded: 1582-1602 |
Location:
Bydgoszcz, Poland
The Assumption of Mary Church
The Assumption of Mary parish church is one of East Pomerania’s oldest and biggest churches. Built along the east-west axis, the construction work lasted from 1280 to 1320: a hall church consisting of three naves and two towers, each of a different height, emerged. In the 13th century the church opened a town school and a library. 1473 saw the opening of a 'studium particulare' (a secondary school), which ...
Founded: 1280 |
Location:
Chełmno, Poland
Holy Cross Church
The Holy Cross Church was built between 1734 and 1739 (the towers were built in between 1854 and 1856) in the location of the destroyed in 1545 monastery of the Dominicans - for the need of Jesuits which arrived to the town in 1677 (architect J. Frisch). The church has a single-aisle, with a number of side chapels and the tribunes. The ceiling stands out due to J.Kubena frescoes (1739-1745) presenting the glory of the ...
Founded: 1734-1739 |
Location:
Brzeg, Poland
Wambierzyce Basilica
Basilica of the Visitation was built between 1715 and 1723. The basilica was given the status of a basilica minor by Pope Pius XI in 1936. The present basilica is located on a hill, where in the twelfth-century, stood a wooden figure of Mary, the Mother of God. According to a chronicle from 1218, the blind Jan from Raszewo regained his sight there. After the event, many pilgrims began visiting the area. Shortly ...
Founded: 1715-1723 |
Location:
Wambierzyce, Poland
Cathedral of St. John the Baptist
The Greek Catholic Cathedral of St John the Baptist in Przemyśl serves as the mother church of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Peremyshl-Warsaw. The church was built in the 17th century by the Jesuit order and dedicated to St. Ignatius. After Przemyśl fell under Austrian rule and the suppression of the order in 1773 it slowly fell into ruins and in 1820 was closed by Austrians and turned into a storeh ...
Founded: 17th century |
Location:
Przemyśl, Poland
Przemysl Cathedral
The Cathedral of Przemyśl is the main church of the Archdiocese of Przemyśl, located at the Cathedral Square in the Old Town. The first cathedral of the Diocese was a wooden church which existed from 1375 to 1412, standing in the square beside the present church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. From 1412 - 1460 a Ruthenian Orthodox cathedral built of stone stood in the courtyard of Przemyśl Castle which it was strongly as ...
Founded: 1495 |
Location:
Przemyśl, Poland
Vang Stave Church
Vang stave church was bought by King Frederick William IV of Prussia and transferred from Vang in the Valdres region of Norway and re-erected in 1842 in Brückenberg near Krummhübel in Silesia, now Karpacz in Poland. It was originally used by a congregation belonging to the Church of Norway, then the Evangelical Church of Prussia, and now serves the Evangelical-Augsburg Church in Poland. The church is ...
Founded: c. 1200 |
Location:
Karpacz, Poland
St. Florian's Cathedral
St. Florian"s Cathedral with its 75-meter towers dominates eastern Warsaw"s Praga district and highlight the cathedral’s role as a form of protest against the erstwhile Russian domination of Poland. There has been a Catholic church presence in or around the site of the future church since 1583, but the impetus for creating a lasting and substantial church did not arrive until the late 19th century. The ma ...
Founded: 1897 |
Location:
Warsaw, Poland
Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Krzeszów is a Roman Catholic church and abbey of the Order of Saint Benedict in Krzeszów, Lower Silesian Voivodeship. Built around 1728-1735, it is a notable baroque church in Silesia, with the art of Ferdinand Brokoff (sculptor) and Michael Willmann (painter). It is also one of the shrines to the Virgin Mary, with a 13th old painting. In one of the ...
Founded: 1728-1735 |
Location:
Krzeszów, Poland
St. Nicholas Cathedral
St. Nicholas Cathedral is a Gothic church established in circa 1247. When the burghers of Elbing (Elbląg) first attempted to adopt the Protestant Reformation in 1525, the provost of St. Nicholas Church maintained Catholic practice. Since 1539 the city council tacitly tolerated and gradually openly promoted Lutheranism, so that St. Nicholas Church had become a Lutheran church by 1573. Following King Sigismund III&quo ...
Founded: 1247 |
Location:
Elbląg, Poland