Kościół pw. Bożego Miłosierdzia, Kraków

The Church of Divine Mercy is a historic Roman Catholic church at the junction of Bożego Miłosierdzia, Felicjanek, and Smoleńsk streets in Kraków’s Nowy Świat quarter. Built in brick between sixteen twenty-six and sixteen twenty-nine, it preserves a Baroque interior, a flood marker from eighteen thirteen, and stained glass funded by hospitality workers.

The Church of Divine Mercy occupies the corner of Bożego Miłosierdzia Street, Felicjanek Street, and Smoleńsk Street in the Nowy Świat quarter. This historic Roman Catholic church is connected with the Wawel Cathedral chapter. Its story begins with the final wishes of Jan Żukowski of Bystrzyca: after fifteen fifty-five, a wooden church was built here.

The present brick structure followed through donations from worshippers between sixteen twenty-six and sixteen twenty-nine. Since sixteen forty-nine, it has been a prebend of the Wawel Cathedral chapter. The Swedish invasion damaged the church in sixteen fifty-five, but it was rebuilt quickly and consecrated ten years later.

A thorough restoration took place from nineteen oh five to nineteen ten, to a design by Jan Sas-Zubrzycki. It is a Baroque church, in the exuberant seventeenth-century manner of religious art and architecture. Inside, the main altar of sixteen fifty-five contains a crucifix concealed by a seventeenth-century Crucifixion painting.

One especially vivid trace of Kraków’s past is a memorial plaque recording the Vistula’s water level during the great flood of eighteen thirteen. The stained glass has its own social history: restaurant owners and a mutual-aid association for waiters funded it in nineteen oh eight; it was destroyed in nineteen forty-five and renewed two years later.