Kościół pw. Niepokalanego Poczęcia Najświętszej Maryi Panny, Gdańsk

You meet the Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a Roman Catholic parish church in Lower Town, within Gdańsk’s central district. Its Gothic Revival manner, a nineteenth-century return to medieval pointed-arch design, belongs to a building that began life as a chapel for a nearby Catholic hospital. Felicitas Tietz, a remarkably capable fundraiser, financed the chapel, and a foundation stone brought from Rome’s catacombs was laid on the twenty-sixth of August, eighteen fifty-seven.

Julius August Licht designed the work, which continued until eighteen sixty. The chapel served hospital life but also attracted Catholics from the surrounding neighbourhood. An expansion in eighteen ninety-four created room for five hundred worshippers; further work in nineteen eleven retained the building’s unified overall form.

After the war, Polish diocesan priests took charge and rapidly repaired the damage. A parish was established here in nineteen forty-nine, serving Lower Town and part of Olszynki. Inside, preserved Gothic Revival furnishings include the main altar with a figure of the Immaculate Conception, alongside an image of Divine Mercy and a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.