Kościół Świętego Marcina
Churches of Kraków
Parish church (Lutheran), Stare Miasto district. Architect: Giovanni Battista Trevano. The Lutheran church traces its origins to the Reformation of Martin Luther. A parish is a community of believers tied to a particular church. A listed monument (heritage register).
History
St Martin's Church stands at 56 Grodzka Street and has belonged to the Lutheran community since the early 19th century. A Romanesque church, probably from the 12th century and older than the town's foundation charter, once stood on this site. The present early Baroque church was built for the Discalced Carmelite nuns in the first half of the 17th century, probably to a design by Giovanni Trevano, and was consecrated in 1644. The nuns left the church in 1787, moving to a new convent and church of St Teresa in Wesoła. The church was put up for sale, and only several decades later was it handed over to the Lutheran congregation.
It is a single-nave building with a straight-ended chancel and a façade topped by a triangular gable. The high altar holds a painting by Henryk Siemiradzki from 1882, showing Christ calming the storm at sea. Above the altar hangs a Gothic crucifix from the late 14th century, one of the oldest in Kraków. Epitaphs from the 18th and 19th centuries survive on the outer wall of the church; they come from the congregation in Wielkanoc near Miechów. By the entrance there was also an epitaph to Mikołaj Rej, the work of Jan Raszka, unveiled in 1921 and destroyed by the Germans during the Second World War.
Today the church is the seat of Kraków's Evangelical-Augsburg (Lutheran) parish and of the Evangelical Reformed diaspora. Services of the Old Catholic Mariavite Church are also held here.
Did you know?
Calvinists do not accept sculptures and paintings in places of worship. However, because this church is ecumenical, they agreed to the painting in the chancel and two statues.