Kościół pw. Świętego Marka, Kraków

Church of St. Mark is a Gothic Roman Catholic church at the corner of Świętego Marka and Sławkowska Streets in Kraków’s Old Town. Begun in 1263 and repeatedly rebuilt after fires, it combines a Gothic structure with an early-Baroque interior. Its exterior Calvary group and early seventeenth-century high altar are notable features.

At the corner of Świętego Marka and Sławkowska Streets rises the Church of St. Mark, a historic Roman Catholic church in Kraków’s Old Town. It is dedicated to Mark the Evangelist and built in Gothic, the medieval manner associated with soaring spaces and pointed forms.

Construction began in 1263, after Duke Bolesław V the Chaste had brought Augustinian-rule canons from Prague before that year. Their church endured four major fires—in 1494, 1528, 1589, and 1724—and each reconstruction altered its appearance a little. The building preserves a Gothic structure with an early-Baroque interior.

Conservation research established that the chancel is its oldest part, while the barrel-vaulted main body was added late in the fifteenth century. Along the chancel’s outer wall on Sławkowska Street, notice the Calvary group: a copy of a Gothic crucifix with Mary and Saint John, made by Marian Paciorek. The original dates from the early sixteenth century; tradition holds that it spoke to Blessed Michał Giedroyć, buried beside the high altar.

That wooden high altar was made around 1618 in Baltazar Kuncz’s workshop. The church entered the heritage register in 1974.