Church Na Skałce (On the Rock)

ul.Skałeczna 15,Kraków http://www.krakow.pl/english/instcbi/37706,inst,12683,1361,instcbi.html

About

Long-standing tradition has associated the church "na Skałce" (literally: "on the Rock") with the martyr's death of the Bishop of Kraków Stanislaus (Stanisław) of Szczepanów which ended the conflict between the Bishop and King Boleslaus the Bold (Bolesław Śmiały) in 1079. Soon, the monarch was exiled from the country and the Bishop became the object of a cult. His grave was initially situated in the church "on the Rock" yet was soon moved to Wawel Cathedral, where it attracted throngs of pilgrims. Today's church "na Skałce" is most probably the third to stand on the spot. The original Romanesque rotunda was redeveloped in Gothic style following the foundation of King Casimir the Great (Kazimierz Wielki) in the 14th century. The second church was destroyed by the Swedish invasion in the mid-17th century. The current appearance of the church results from work completed in 1740-1762. Both this and the monumental twin stairway leading up to the church were designed by a Warsaw-based architect, Antonio Solari. A monastery of the Pauline Fathers, brought to Kraków by the historian Jan Długosz, is connected to the church. Inside the church we can see the wooden block in the altar in the Chapel of St Stanislaus. This was sprinkled with the blood of the martyred bishop at the moment of his death. In the wall of the same chapel, behind a glass oculus, there are remnants of stone steps of the altar at which the enraged king was to kill the martyr. The pond situated next to the church became an important place in the cult of the Bishop. According to one of the versions of the legend of the saint, eagles brought the quartered corpse of the Bishop here, which then miraculously grew back together. The pond was fenced towards the end of the 17th century and a baroque monument of the martyred saint was erected in its centre. Its waters are believed to have healing properties, especially effective for eye and skin diseases. Every year, on the first Sunday following the Feast of St Stanislaus (which falls on 8th May), congregations meet to carry the relics of the bishop and other saints in a ceremonial procession from Wawel to Skałka. The tradition reaches back to the time of the bishop's canonisation, that is 1253. The pilgrimage to Skałka was also a custom that Polish kings practised on the day preceding their coronation: a form of repentance for the deed of Boleslaus the Brave. Towards the end of the 19th century, the senior Kraków architect, Teofil Żebrawski, designed the crypt under the church (Crypt of the People of Merit) intended to house the remains of famous Poles. It was to become the last resting place for those Poles who had contributed to the development of Polish national culture. In 1880, on the 400th anniversary of his death, Jan Długosz was reburied here. A year later, the remnants of poet and ethnographer Wincenty Pol, and man of letters and translator Lucjan Siemieński were brought to the Crypt from the Rakowicki Cemetery. Buried here in the following years were the writer Józef Ignacy Kraszewski (1887), poets Teofil Lenartowicz (1893) and Adam Asnyk (1897), painter Henryk Siemiradzki (1902), and playwright and painter Stanisław Wyspiański (1907). Between the two world wars, the crypt became the resting place for the painter Jacek Malczewski (1929) and composer Karol Szymanowski (1937). After the second world war, it became the burial place of the actor Ludwik Solski (1954), and mathematician and astronomer Tadeusz Banachiewicz (1955) who was buried here without a permit from the city authorities. The latest burial in Skałka, that of the Nobel Prize winner Czesław Miłosz in 2004, brought out crowds of thousands of people. The quite well preserved 14th-century defence wall of the former City of Kazimierz, made of large limestone boulders, stands by the church and monastery.
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