Church of the Holiest Heart of Jesus (Jesuit)

After the dissolution of the Jesuit order in the 1770s, Jesuit monks didn’t reappear in Kraków until 1867. They soon purchased an estate known as angielskie in Wesoła, east of the city centre, which formerly belonged to the founder of Kraków theatre – Jacek Kluszewski. The two-storey-high residence standing there was adapted as a temporary HQ of the monastery.

The construction of a new church standing next to the monastery complex and replacing their temporary chapel began in 1909. Unfortunately, no more than the shell had been completed by the outbreak of the first world war. Construction finished in the newly reborn Poland in 1921.

The building was crowned with a monumental tower which combines nearly all possible historical styles, with a clear domination of neo-Romanesque and neo-Gothic elements. The church, including the interior, was designed by one of the most famous Kraków architects of the first half of the 20th century, Franciszek Mączyński, who capped the church’s nave with mock-Gothic cross vaulting supported on arching reinforcements. The decoration of the interior, including the high altar designed by Karol Hukan and wall paintings by Jan Bukowski, keeps to the modernist style. Attention is drawn to the modernist detail on the facade, including the main portal with the figure of Christ by Xawery Dunikowski. In 1960, Pope John XXIII elevated the church to the rank of a Lesser Basilica.