Churches, Warsaw

It's not easy to introduce our church, because our church is not fundamentally a building or a set of programs. Our church is people — a community with a shared vision and a shared faith in Jesus Christ. We could describe International Christian Fellowship as a community of upward-looking people and forward-looking people.

If you were to visit us, you would discover that we are ordinary people like you. You would meet students, business people, journalists, lawyers and full-time mothers. We struggle in the trials of life. We are far from perfect. You would discover, however, that we're a community of faith — that we're an "upward-looking people".

If you would like to get to know more you can contact us via our website www.icfwarsaw.org or call us @ 607 309 490.
We meet every Sunday in two locations:

@ 10.00 am at Hotel Mrowka (Przekorna Street 33) near Konstancin
@ 5.00 pm at Mokotów at Pulawksa 114

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There are not many Muslims in Poland so the mosque in Warsaw is one of only four mosques in our country. It was adapted in 1993 from a villa so, while the facade is characteristic of this kind of building, there is just an ordinary house behind it. I haven't been inside so cannot say anything about the interior. It lacks a minaret so there is no muezzin calling the faithful to prayers but prayers are held there every Friday at noon.
The building also houses the offices of the Muslim Community and of some Muslim cultural institutions.
Address: 103, Wiertnicza St. (not far from Wilanow)

The Church of Creative Communities in Warsaw is dedicated to St Brother Albert and St Andrew the Apostle. It is the smallest church in Warsaw city. It is located on Teatralny Square.

During WW II there was a hospital inside the church. In the main altal there is a XVI century painting of Sebastiano del Piombo.

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This is a baroque church. Built in 1668-1680. Founded by Castellan S.Skaryszewski. Partly destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising. The nave and cloister retain the 18th-20th century epitaphs and tombstones, especially of the soldiers fallen during the World War II - very nice around the church and main entrance.

Nothing special about this church but its grim and gloomy history:
If you've been to the city museum on the Old Town Square you've seen the picture of the great destruction, the ruins Warsaw became by the end of the war, especially the Ghetto area. There is one building that stands in that field of the razed down ghetto, pointing its blaming finger to the sky, it is this church, originally left in the middle of the Jewish ghetto for those Polish-Jewish families who accepted the Catholic religion as part of assimilation process, part of being what they thought of as "genuinely Polish".
Not that it helped them much when the Nazis came.....

It was not destroyed then (Mayl 1943) because the Nazis didn't want to inflame the Polish/Catholic population.

It stands on Nowolipki St. about fifty meters west of the corner of Jana Pawla II St.

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In every or almost every Warsaw church there is a commemorative plaque, usually decorated with Polish narional flags, to memory of thousands Poles killed in Katyn in 1940. What's Katyn?

It's the name of both a village and a forest near Smolensk, Russia. Katyn forest is the site of the Katyn massacre in the Second World War in which captured Poland officers and other citizens were killed.

WWII broke out when Poland was attacked by the two invaders: Hitler's Nazis (Seprember, 1) from the West and Stalin's Soviet troops (September, 17) from the East. The two friends Stalin and Hitler divided Poland half by half in the secret Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact signed in Moscow on August 23, 1939. On March 5, 1940, the members of the Soviet Politburo including Stalin signed an order to execute 25,700 Polish "nationalists and counterrevolutionaries" kept at camps and prisons in occupied eastern Poland (western Ukraine and Belarus now). In the period from April 3 to May 19, 1940 about 22,000 prisoners were executed.

In April 1943 the German Wehrmacht discovered the mass grave of more than 4,000 Polish military reserve officers in the forest on Goat Hill near Katyn. The investigation led by the Red Cross disclosed that the crime had to be commited by Soviets before German invasion. The Soviet Union blamed Nazi Germany but in 1990 admitted that Stalin had been responsible.

So, in my censored school books to history the name Katyn was initially skipped then it was put with the comment about terrible Nazis crime and imperialistic, insolent, anti-Soviet liers that the crime had been commited by certainly always friendly to Poland and peaceful Sovied Union. But each Polish kid and youth did know well who comitted that crime of genocide in 1940. This knowledge was transferred from parents to kids and disclosed on these plaques (that time with no word on who did it though) put in churches.

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There are quite numerous chapels, usually less or more hidden behind trees or bushes along both main and off the beaten path streets in Warsaw. Just look around to find them.

These chapels are characteristic architectural reminders of deep religious faith of people living in old common state of Lithuania and Poland, and were easy to find in the area of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1569 - 1795), one of the largest and most populous states in Europe which had covered huge area which belongs now to a few independent states: Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia - look at the map here. Well, in the former Soviet Union many of the chapels which luckily survived WWII (1939 - 1945) were removed or blown up by order of Stalin, but not in Poland :-).

I like to look at these little chapels, read Polish or Latin inscriptions on them and certainly I always take pictures of them. These located in downtown or the old town of Warsaw were mostly totally or partly damaged during WWII, some were removed by anynomous people, and hidden out of the city to be put back after the war.

I found St. Barbara's a little off the main thoroughfare, tucked into a quiet intersection of park and shady street. The church was open for prayers, and people did stop to pray, so tread lightly. The grounds of this church held the thirteen stations of the cross in vestibules like this one here. I thought it was a nice touch, and it is most unfortunate, that I can't bring the smell of flowers or soudn of birds to a photograph.

When you walk along the streets of Warsaw you will noticed that there are churches everywhere. Polish are very religious people so if you want to visit the churches it's adviceable to wear suitable clothes (which means that you have sleeves on your shirt and trousers or long skirt). In Holy Cross church you will find the heart of F. Chopin.

The Jesuit Church (Kosciol Jezuitow): It stands very close to the Cathedral and is considered one of the first and the most beautiful Baroque churches in Poland. The Jesuit Church was built in the beginning of 17th century, during the rule of King Sigismund Vasa III.