Capuchin Church (Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary)

In 1696-1700, a church and a monastery for the Capuchin Order from Italy were built on today’s Loretańska Street. The construction is baroque, yet in the most modest form imposed by the strict rule of the order. Its founder was the Standard Bearer of Zator, Wojciech Dembiński, who also had the so-called Holy House of Loreto built in the courtyard of the monastery. Designed by Kacper Bażanka (1712-1719) it makes a reference in both form and decoration to the Holy House where Mary and Joseph lived, which – as tradition has it – was miraculously transferred by angels from Nazareth to Loreto in 1294.

The single-nave interior of the church is covered with barrel vaulting with lunettes (nave) and cross vaulting (chancel, chapels, and porch). Standing in the chancel is the high altar with a painting of the Annunciation, a copy of the 14th-century work from the church of the Servite Order in Florence, donated to the Capuchins by Cosimo III de Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Among the mostly 18th-century furnishing, attention is drawn to the altar blind (covering the main altar) with the already classic – albeit modern – Merciful Christ. “Jesus, I trust in you” by Adolf Hyła (1944). Warsaw in flames forms the background to this work: a gift from the people of Warsaw, saved from the fires of the uprising, who found shelter in the monastery.

A peculiarity of the church is a cannon ball situated in the pillar on the left hand side of the altar, which was embedded in the wall during the fights between the Confederates of Bar and Russian armies in 1768. The cross standing in front of the church is devoted to the unknown confederates killed in battles.