Kościół pw. Świętego Krzyża
Churches of Kraków
Church (Roman Catholic), Stare Miasto district. A listed monument (heritage register).
History
The Church of the Holy Cross stands on Świętego Ducha Square, right next to the Juliusz Słowacki Theatre, and is regarded as one of the most stylistically pure Gothic buildings in Kraków. According to tradition, the first, wooden church was founded at the end of the 12th century by Bishop Pełka. In 1244 Bishop Jan Prandota settled the Order of the Holy Spirit (the Duchacy) here, who ran a hospital, and a parish already existed at that time. For the next five and a half centuries the history of the church was bound up with this order and with the Hospital of the Holy Spirit.
The present masonry church dates from the 14th century. The stone chancel was built at the beginning of the century, perhaps as early as around 1300, and the square brick nave was completed in the second half of the century, certainly no later than 1420. In 1528 a great fire consumed the interior, and the chancel vault probably collapsed at that time; it was rebuilt by 1533. The church was renovated in 1683-1684 and again in 1896-1898. After the Order of the Holy Spirit was dissolved in 1783, the parish was entrusted to diocesan priests. The neighbouring monastery, hospital and Church of the Holy Spirit were demolished in the 19th century to make way for the theatre. The Church of the Holy Cross and the House under the Cross (Dom pod Krzyżem) survived.
The interior is striking for the palm vault of the nave, supported by a single central pillar that symbolises the biblical Tree of Life. The walls are covered with 19th-century reconstructions of Renaissance paintings from the second half of the 16th century. The originals could not be saved because of damp, but Stanisław Wyspiański copied them at a scale of 1:1, and his cartoons were used by Antoni Tuch to make the reconstructions. On the east wall is the Mirror of the Sinner, the only surviving depiction of its kind in Polish painting. In 1442 the Chapel of St Sophia was the guild chapel of Kraków's bakers. In 1903 Wojciech Korfanty married Elżbieta Szprotówna in this church, and in April 1962 Bishop Karol Wojtyła led a retreat for artists here. Next to the church stands an early Gothic stone presbytery, the oldest surviving residential building in Kraków.
Did you know?
When in 1886 the city council decided to demolish the neighbouring monastery and hospital of the Order of the Holy Spirit to build the theatre, among those who protested was Jan Matejko. After the failed defence of the church, he renounced his honorary citizenship of Kraków and announced that he would no longer exhibit his paintings in the city.