History

A Catholic History of Kraków

Kraków became a see in the year 1000, and in 1079 King Bolesław II killed Bishop Stanislaus at Skałka. His relics made Wawel the church where kings were crowned and buried. In the thirteenth century the Dominicans, Franciscans and other orders opened their first Polish houses here, the university followed in 1364, and the fifteenth century added a crop of saints. The court moved to Warsaw in 1596, but Kraków kept the cathedral, the tombs and the memory, and under the partitions it became the Poles' national shrine. It lived through the German occupation under Cardinal Sapieha and through communism, and it gave the Church Saint Faustina, with Divine Mercy at Łagiewniki, and Saint John Paul II.

Before 1000

The Vistulans, Wawel Hill and the First Churches

Wawel Hill was the main stronghold of the Vistulans, the tribe that held the upper Vistula. The Life of Methodius mentions a pagan prince on the Vistula whom the saint warned to accept baptism. Historians place him at Kraków or at Wiślica, and the question is open. In the 990s the region passed from Bohemian rule to the first Piast dukes of Poland.

The earliest Christian building is the rotunda of Our Lady on Wawel, later dedicated to Saints Felix and Adauctus. It is among the oldest stone buildings in Poland, and most scholars date it to the late tenth or early eleventh century. Its remains are shown in the Lost Wawel exhibition in the royal castle.

Archcathedral Basilica of Saints Stanislaus Bishop and Martyr and Wenceslaus Martyr on Wawel

Sources(22)

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