Kościół Wszystkich Świętych w Krakowie
Churches of Kraków
Church (Roman Catholic), Stare Miasto district. Date according to OpenStreetMap: 13th century.
History
All Saints' Square no longer has the old church that gave the square its name. A parish church, first Romanesque and later Gothic, was built here in the first half of the 13th century. The first mention of it comes from the Greater Life of St Stanislaus of around 1257. It tells of a possessed young man who was tied up in front of the church and was miraculously healed there by the saint. According to a 14th-century account, the founder was the knight Jakub Bobola of the Leliwa coat of arms. In 1305 the church was damaged by fire; it was probably after this that it took on the Gothic form of a stone and brick two-nave hall church with a polygonal chancel. In 1591 a five-storey tower was added to the chancel.
In 1490 the church was raised to the rank of a collegiate church. It had a parish school, and a riot by its pupils in 1549 spread to all the parish schools in the city and ended with the schoolboys leaving Kraków. In 1607 and 1612 Bishop Piotr Tylicki held two diocesan synods in this church. In 1646 a painting of the Madonna, famed for its graces, was brought from Hungary for one of the altars. In 1763 the interior was covered with polychrome paintings by Walenty Janowski, and a painting of All Saints by Łukasz Orłowski was placed in the high altar.
At the beginning of the 19th century the church began to fall into disrepair. Around 1820 services were moved to the neighbouring Church of St Francis, and around 1832 to the Church of Saints Peter and Paul. The building was demolished in 1835-1838, and the tower in 1842. In its place a small square was laid out with a monument to Mikołaj Zyblikiewicz.
Did you know?
The furnishings of the demolished church were scattered among many churches: the baptismal font of 1528 and the painting from the high altar went to the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, where the parish moved from here still operates today, the altars went to Pleszów and Jaworzno, the Baroque portal to Czernichów, and the organ to Wadowice.