Kalwaria Zebrzydowska — a Mannerist Jerusalem in the Polish hills

Three burning crosses over Żar hill

It began with a single chapel. In 1600 Mikołaj Zebrzydowski, voivode of Kraków, founded a small church of the Crucifixion on Żar hill, built to a model that Hieronim Strzała had brought back from Jerusalem the year before. Legend fills in the rest: the voivode and his wife Urszula are said to have seen three burning crosses rising above the hill from a window of Lanckorona castle. The papal nuncio Claudio Rangoni consecrated the chapel on 4 October 1601.

It was meant for the founder's private devotion, but the idea outgrew that almost at once. By a deed of 1 December 1602 Zebrzydowski handed part of the hill and a site for a monastery to the Bernardines, the Observant Franciscans; the bishop of Kraków and King Sigismund III confirmed it a year later. Church and monastery went up between 1604 and 1609 to designs by Giovanni Maria Bernardoni.

Jerusalem spread over two hills

In 1604 Zebrzydowski turned to a book: the Dutch scholar Christian Adrichomius and his reconstruction of Jerusalem as it stood in the time of Christ. The hills around the monastery proved similar enough to carry the holy places — one became Golgotha, another the Mount of Olives, and the local stream was renamed the Cedron. Twelve chapels of the Way of the Cross were built between 1609 and 1617 to plans by Paul Baudarth, an architect and goldsmith from Antwerp who went on to raise nearly every chapel in the complex.

The founder's heirs kept building. His son Jan added five Passion chapels and eight Marian ones between 1623 and 1641; Michał Zebrzydowski enlarged the monastery with a second cloister garden and built the chapel of Our Lady of Kalwaria. The last of the great benefactors, Magdalena Czartoryska née Konopacka, extended the church with a long nave and paid for the façade and its two towers. After her, the work depended on gifts from nobles, clergy and pilgrims.

Today 42 chapels and churches stand across roughly six square kilometres, with the paths themselves running to nearly five kilometres. They form two circuits: the Paths of the Lord Jesus, twenty-eight stations in twenty-four buildings, from the Upper Room through the Garden of Olives and Pilate's palace to the Tomb, and the Paths of the Mother of God, twenty-four stations in eleven buildings. Several chapels belong to both.

Chapels built as shapes

The ground plans are what surprises most first-time visitors. Every chapel is different, and many were laid out as a geometric figure or a symbol. The Ecce Homo chapel, built between 1605 and 1609, stands on a Greek cross, its vault covered in dense stucco in the Dutch Mannerist manner. The Heart of Mary chapel, raised by Baudarth in 1615, has the plan of a heart and marks the meeting of Jesus and his mother on the road to Calvary. The church of the Dormition, built from 1615 to 1642, is one of the largest structures in the whole complex.

The basilica is late Baroque with rococo detail, with painted decoration, historic choir stalls and richly inlaid furnishings. The monastery encloses two cloister gardens and has five bastion-like projections; the wing nearest the church, with a well at its centre, carries stucco work and portraits of the founders. A wall of 1624 closes the site from the south, with two bastions converted in 1747 for pastoral use.

In a chapel against the south wall of the church hangs the image of Our Lady of Kalwaria, given to the monastery in 1641 by Stanisław Paszkowski. Held to be miraculous, it turned a Passion sanctuary into a Marian one as well. The image was crowned on 15 August 1887, and in 1979 John Paul II raised the main church to the rank of minor basilica.

Mystery plays and the August feast

The first Passion devotions were held in 1608, at crosses standing where the chapels would later be built. They grew into a full performance: two scripts survive, from 1610 and 1618, written by Abraham Rożniatowski. After the first partition of Poland the Austrian authorities cut the ceremonies back sharply as superstition; the present shape of the Holy Week mystery play was devised after the Second World War by Augustyn Chadam, who introduced new roles in 1947 along with the entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

The year's second peak falls in August, at the feast of the Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin Mary, with processions moving between Mary's House, the Tomb of the Mother of God and the basilica. In strong years around one and a half million pilgrims come. Karol Wojtyła knew the place from childhood; as pope he returned twice, in 1979 and on 19 August 2002, when he celebrated his last Mass in Poland here. Benedict XVI visited in 2006.

Getting there

• By car — Kalwaria Zebrzydowska lies about 30 km south-west of Kraków as the crow flies, on the road towards Wadowice and Bielsko-Biała; there is parking by the monastery, but it fills very early on feast days.
• By train — Kalwaria Zebrzydowska Lanckorona station is on the Kraków–Wadowice–Bielsko-Biała line, about fifteen minutes uphill from the monastery.
• By bus — services from Kraków and Wadowice stop in the centre of the town, from where the way to the sanctuary is signposted.
• On foot or by bike — the sanctuary sits on pilgrimage and walking routes around Lanckorona; the last stretch always climbs, because the monastery stands on the hilltop.

Walking the paths

The basilica and monastery take little time, but they are only the opening. The place makes sense out on the paths: five kilometres of woodland tracks with constant climbs and descents, crossing a stream and opening onto clearings with the next chapel. Footwear matters more here than a guidebook, and the tracks turn muddy after rain. Allow three to four hours to walk both circuits without hurrying.

Most chapels open for services and processions, so the rest of the time you see their exteriors — no great loss when the shapes are this varied. Holy Week and the August feast show the sanctuary fully at work, but they also put thousands of people on the paths at once. For quiet and empty tracks, come on an ordinary weekday outside the pilgrimage season.

How to get there and practical info

Location

Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, Lesser Poland Voivodeship; about 30 km south-west of Kraków

Area of the World Heritage site

380 hectares, with a buffer zone of about 2,600 hectares

Chapels and churches

42 buildings along the paths

Length of the paths

close to 5 km across some 6 km²

Status

UNESCO World Heritage since 1999, Polish Historic Monument since 2000

Time needed

three to four hours for both circuits

Current opening hours and tickets

official website of the sanctuary

When to go