Kościół pw. Matki Boskiej Częstochowskiej
Churches of Kraków
Church (Roman Catholic), Nowa Huta district.
History
The church stands in the middle of the Szklane Domy estate in Nowa Huta, and it all started with a wayside cross. Before 1949 a dirt road ran here from Mogiła to Bieńczyce. In 1880 the people of Bieńczyce put up a wooden cross beside it, and in 1932 they replaced it with a concrete one. The building of Nowa Huta did not remove the cross - it stayed where it was, like many wayside shrines and crosses in the new town.
In the late 1970s Cardinal Karol Wojtyła decided that the huge Mogiła parish had to be divided into two smaller ones, and an application for permission to build a new church was sent to the authorities. In 1978 the faithful began celebrating Mass by the cross, although threats from the authorities halted the prayers for a time. Permission to build was only signed after John Paul II's first pilgrimage in 1979 and after Solidarity was born. First a chapel was built, along with a building with catechesis rooms and cells for the monks. Cardinal Franciszek Macharski blessed it and established the parish in 1983.
Work on the new church began in 1984 to a design by Krzysztof Dyga and Andrzej Nasfeter, chosen by the parishioners from four proposals. It was consecrated on 11 June 1995 by Cardinal Franciszek Macharski. The church was built of the same brick used for the Nowa Huta blocks of flats; it has a modern form with a striking roof. Seen from the front, it looks like a tree: the entrances form the roots and trunk, and the roof a spreading crown. The interior is not divided into aisles but forms a single austere yet bright and spacious hall, with statues of the Evangelists in the corners. The same building houses a Cistercian monastery and St Bernard's Boys' Secondary School. On the square in front of the church are monuments to Fr Jerzy Popiełuszko, to the underground press of the martial law period and to the 25th anniversary of Solidarity.
Did you know?
The G.F. Steinmeyer organ, installed in 2004, was brought here from Our Saviour's Church in Haugesund.