Kościół pw. Świętego Józefa, Gdańsk

St Joseph’s Church is listed as an immovable heritage monument of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. Its patron is Joseph of Nazareth. At the chancel, a large stained-glass window made in nineteen seventy uses Barbara Massalska’s design.

External buttresses brace the walls, a distinction held by no other church in Gdańsk. In fourteen sixty-seven, Carmelites received the former Saint George leper hospital as compensation after abandoning their earlier Young City convent. Their intended church was far grander, with three aisles, but lack of money meant that only the chancel and a single nave were built.

During the Reformation, this remained among the few Roman Catholic churches still functioning in Gdańsk. Its gravest wartime chapter came on March twenty-seventh, nineteen forty-five, when Red Army troops set the church alight with incendiary liquid despite more than a hundred people sheltering within; civilians who had sought refuge died in the blaze. The fire stripped away the roofs, vaulting, and nearly all the furnishings.

Oblate Missionaries took charge in nineteen forty-seven and reconsecrated the rebuilt church in nineteen fifty-three. The adjoining former Carmelite monastery now belongs to the Oblates, while this church serves Saint Bridget’s parish.