Kościół pw. Świętego Stanisława Kostki
Churches of Kraków
Church (Roman Catholic), Dębniki district. Architect: Wacław Krzyżanowski.
History
The Church of St Stanislaus Kostka in Dębniki is run by the Salesians. Until the First Partition of Poland in 1772 Dębniki belonged to the Skałka parish, and later the border on the Vistula cut it off from Kraków. The residents then went to the small Church of St Bartholomew in Ludwinów. In 1883 a specially formed committee succeeded in having a small chapel built on today's Madalińskiego Street. When Dębniki was incorporated into Kraków in 1910, the city council, at the request of Mayor Juliusz Leo, decided to donate land for a new parish church free of charge.
In July 1918 Archbishop Adam Sapieha created a new pastoral centre in Dębniki and entrusted it to the Salesian Society. Two years later, on a plot donated by the city at the corner of Pułaskiego Street and Konfederacka Street, a wooden church was built and consecrated on 5 December 1920. When it became too small, a committee to build a new church was set up in 1929. A competition chose the design by the architect Wacław Krzyżanowski. The foundation stone was blessed on 9 October 1932 by Archbishop Sapieha, and in 1938 the auxiliary bishop of Kraków, Stanisław Rospond, consecrated the finished church.
The church is modernist, with a single nave, built on the plan of a Latin cross. Where the nave crosses the transept rises an openwork dome, with a bell tower topped by a cross above it. The dome reaches 45 metres and towers over the skyline of Dębniki. The stained-glass windows and the mosaics on the pillars were made in the early 1980s.
Did you know?
Present at the solemn consecration of the church was Karol Wojtyła, then a student of Polish literature, who had moved to Dębniki in the summer of 1938. Years later, on 3 November 1946, he celebrated his first Mass here, and on 17 August 2002 he came to this church as Pope John Paul II.