Kościół pw. Świętej Barbary, Kraków

St Barbara’s Church is a historic Roman Catholic church cared for by the Jesuits, tucked between St Mary’s Square and Little Market Square. Its Gothic fabric—medieval architecture shaped in brick—rose between 1338 and 1402. It may first have served the cemetery that occupied St Mary’s Square for centuries.

The Jesuits took charge here in 1583, and the preacher Piotr Skarga delivered sermons in this church. Their order was dissolved in 1773, so the Kraków merchants’ congregation inherited the building; the Holy Sepulchre order followed in 1796. Since 1874, the Jesuits have again made it their church.

At the façade, the small cemetery chapel called the Ogrojec leads into the porch. Inside it is an altar with a carved scene of Christ praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, probably made by Veit Stoss or his workshop. The church’s later furnishings create a Baroque interior, but its high altar preserves a Gothic crucifix from about 1420.

Beneath the church lies Jakub Wujek, the first person to translate the Bible into Polish. This compact building holds Kraków’s medieval, Jesuit, and biblical history remarkably close together.