Kościół świętej Jadwigi Królowej Kraków

Church of St. Queen Jadwiga in Krakow

Monuments

ul. Łokietka 60, 31-334 Kraków Tourist region: Kraków i okolice

tel. +48 126371415
fax. +48 126387152

Before the present church was built, the first services were held a few hundred metres away, in a makeshift chapel and catechetical point. The Kraków-Krowodrza parish was established thanks to the efforts of Cardinal Karol Wojtyła. The church houses the relics of Saint Jadwiga, given by Pope St John Paul II, who canonised Blessed Jadwiga the Queen of Poland in 1997.

Kraków expanded rapidly in the 1950s. In the 1970s, the expansion consisted of building new housing estates that were not equipped with churches. Cardinal Karol Wojtyła sought permission from the communist authorities to build the churches. From 1971 onwards, catechetical points were established in Krowodrza, where services were held. Cardinal Karol Wojtyła also celebrated Mass in 1974. The Pope visited the parish during his second pilgrimage to his homeland. The chalices and chasubles he donated to the church are in the sacristy.

The church, built between 1980 and 1990, has a modern, monumental body based on an isosceles Greek cross plan. The amphitheatre space in front of the altar is illuminated by skylights in the ceiling and walls. The relics of the church's patron saint, handed down in 1983 by Pope St John Paul II, are in a sarcophagus on the main altar. Behind the altar is the tabernacle and a large stained-glass window, which form the backdrop for the cross, a copy of the Wawel Cross before which Saint Jadwiga prayed. The chapel of the lower church contains a painting of Our Lady of the Dawn Gate, the work of Tadeusz Boruta from 1993, and a Stations of the Cross by Teresa Tarczyńska. The chapel decoration is the work of Teresa Tarczyńska and Maciej Zychowicz.

A cross was placed in front of the main entrance to the church, which was part of the papal altar in Błonie during John Paul II's first pilgrimage to Poland. Near the cross, on 19 July 1992, the Stone of Faith and Independence was unveiled, a large section of which is a stone – a fragment of the first Grunwald monument from Matejki Square in Kraków.

The church was consecrated on 10 June 1990.

In the basement of the church is the National Pantheon of the Home Army Soldiers of the Polish Eastern Borderlands, where there is, among other things, a plaque dedicated to the founder and first commander of the 27th Volhynian Infantry Division of the AK, General Jan W. Kiwerski. The Church of St Jadwiga the Queen is the patronal-garrison church of the soldiers of the Home Army of the Polish Eastern Borderlands.