Description of the attraction
The Jesuit Church of the Virgin Mary is one of the most beautiful churches in Warsaw. The temple is located in the Old City.
The church was founded by King Sigismund III on the initiative of Peter Skarg in 1609 for the Jesuits. There is no reliable information about the architect, but historians suggest that the author of the project was Jan Frankievich, who built a church in the style of Polish Mannerism.
In 1640, Cardinal Karl Ferdinand Vasa presented the church with a splendid silver altar, which was stolen by Swedish troops in 1656. In 1660, a church pharmacy was opened, which was used by all residents of Warsaw. After 8 years, lectures on theology and philosophy began to be held in the church. In 1720, construction began on a two-story building at the back of the church at the initiative of Bishop Luis Bartholomew Zaluska. The new building houses a school, a pharmacy and a rich church library. In the years that followed, the church flourished with rich baroque furniture, a marble altar and new floors, and two chapels were built.
In 1773, the Jesuits were expelled from the church, the church turned into a parish school under the leadership of the National Education Commission. The Jesuits were able to return to the Church of the Virgin Mary only in 1918. In the 1920s and 1930s, renovations were carried out, and a decade later, the church was almost completely destroyed by an explosion during World War II. The construction of the new church was carried out from 1950 to 1973. Fragments of the tombstone of Jan Tarlo, an icon of the Mother of God, brought to Poland in 1651 by Bishop Juan de Torres as a gift from Pope Innocent X, have survived from the original decoration.
The "angelic" entrance doors were made in 2009 by the sculptor Igor Mitorai as an exact replica of the doors in the Roman church of Santa Maria del Angeli. The gift was timed to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the Church of the Virgin Mary.
