Catholics in Poland

 Perhaps the most famous buliding in Krakow's huge town square is St Mary's Basilica.  With its two impressive spires, and red brick exterior, it juts out at an angle out of one corner of the otherwise perfect square.  The square was built to exact specifications in the middle ages(12th century?) and is 200 m on each side -- the largest square in those days, with a road radiating from each corner and three more at angles from each side.

The fact that St Mary's is at an angle at odds with the other angles of the square shows the importance of the Catholic Church in Polish life.  

Ninety percent of Poles are Catholic.  

When we headed our yesterday morning, a Sunday, the first thing we noticed is that people were dressed up and streaming into the church near our hostel.  We followed, intending to join the Mass, but the church was full and people were lined up outside the door.  We decided to just keep going, hoping to find another service.  During the day, almost every church we encountered was overflowing and I was astounded at the number of services offered each Sunday and each weekday.

The churches are beautiful, outside and in.  Beautiful architecture of various styles: Gothic, Romantic, Modern, stone, wooden, brick.

Two wooden churches:

Little shrine in the middle of the intersection:

People remaining for individual prayer after a mass:

There was one that really stood out for me.  It was built in the sixties, while Poland was under Communist rule.  Under Communism, religious services are officially disallowed.  But even the powerful Russian overlords had to bend their rules, as the Medieval town planners had to do with with their perfect square, to accommodate a people's faith.

The church that impacted me most is located in Nowa Huta (New Steel Town), our destination for the day and it happens to be the birthplace of out host, Aga.  Nova Huta was a perfectly planned community, built as a model for idyllic Communist towns in the 1950s.  It's about a 40 minute tram ride from Krakow. It consists of wide, tree lined streets, all radiating from the town square, lots of parks and benches and shade trees.  And dozens and dozens of high rise concrete apartment buildings, forming the highest density of population in all of Poland.  The town served the newly constructed steel mill that gave it its name.

The one thing the perfectly planned town did not have, by plan, was a church.  The people decided to do something about this and built one, built entirely by volunteers, and with not one penny from the Communist regime.  It's called the ark and is beautiful:

Jan, providing scale of building...

And scale of stonework, all placed by hand by volunteers!

Interior proudly defies Communist ban on religion and antithesis of typical Communist colour schemes:

I love this depiction of Christ, what a symbol for the oppressed, beaten Poles.

Of course, Pope John Paul II was Polish and elected while Poland was still under Communist rule.  There are many, many plaques and statues odd the Pope.  This one, on the hill of Wawel Castle, is my favourite: