Kościół pw. Świętego Józefa, Kraków

Kościół pw. Świętego Józefa is the Church of St Joseph, the historic convent church of Kraków’s Bernardine Sisters on Poselska Street. The present church was built between 1694 and 1703, replacing the demolished Tęczyński palace; Michał Warszycki, voivode of Sandomierz, helped pay for it. Its Baroque character belongs to the theatrical, richly ornamented church style of the seventeenth century.

On the courtyard boundary, notice the rusticated wall with its three gateways, designed by Tomasz Majewski in 1840; it encloses a small threshold between street and convent. The church partly burned during Kraków’s fire of 1850, yet its interior survived. Inside, the main altar, four side altars and pulpit were carved in Jerzy Hankis’s Kraków workshop between 1697 and 1699.

The high altar holds an Italian painting of Saint Joseph with the young Christ, made in the first half of the seventeenth century. Since 1879, Kraków has held patronal observances before this image, and in 2016 this church became the diocesan sanctuary of Saint Joseph. The building, convent wall and monastery buildings entered a comprehensive conservation programme in 2005.