Churches

Hi, I’m here to tell you some things about churches located in Gdańsk. As you may know, Poland is a catholic country, and also very religious, so churches are one thing you surely can’t miss.

In the beginning let’s talk about saint Jan Bosko’s church. It’s an antique neogothic building located in district Orunia. It was the first temple in that neighbourhood, which foundations were made around the first half of XV century. It looks diffrent now from the building that was being extended and pulled down for centuries. Current church was built on the remains of old one, which was burned in1813 by the French. Rebuild started in year 1820, and one of the architects was a famous prussian artist – Karl Friedrich Schinkel.

Let’s go to Basilic in district Oliwa. It’s history goes all the way back to year 1178, when pomeranian prince, Sambor I, the first brought the Cistercian order to Oliwa and gave the land, where they built their first wooden church. In 1224 the the church is bulit in roman style, but that changes due to a fire in 1350 — the current look of the church is estimated to be from the second half of XIV century.

The oldest parochial church in Old Town is sain Catherine’s (Catherin of Alexandria fom Egypt). It was built between years 1227-1239 and the foundators were Pomeranian princes. The church was extended again in 1379. In this church you can find a tombstone of astronomer Jan Hevelius from year 1659. The significant painting there is the painting of Mother of God from sanctuary in Bołszowce. The interesting fact is that you can find there also carillon, which is an instrument consisting of minimum 37 bells. Currently there are 50 bells in that church – the last one, named Catherine, was added in 2013.

Saint Nikolai’s Basilic is located in central Gdańsk nad is one of the oldest churches around here — it was built in XII century. The first church there was made circa 1185. They started to build current version of the church in 1348. For years it belonged to Black Friars, then for some time to Protestants, but eventually it came back to whom it belonged earlier. During the World War II it was the only gothic building that was not destroyed. In year 2018 it was closed due to a possibility of disaster, which could happen because of cracks in the coping