Basilica of Our Lady of Angels – church interior

The Basilica of Our Lady of Angels, designed by a Jesuit architect Jan Bernardoni, is a single-nave church with two towers in the façade. On the right of the church there is the monastery, on the left there three Baroque chapels from the 17th and the 18th centuries. In the 17th c. a chapel was annexed to the church on the southern side, which accommodates the Miraculous Image of Our Lady of Kalwaria.

In the high altar there is a silver statue of Our Lady of Angels, brought from Loreto by the founder of the Shrine, Mikołaj Zebrzydowski. The nave of the church features numerous elements of late Baroque. In a side altar of the nave on the southern side there is an oil painting representing St. Mary Magdalene (from ca. 1754), a work by Jan Majer. On the opposite side of the nave, on the northern side, there is a much earlier painting representing St. Francis. The polychromy on the vaults of the nave was painted before World War I by Włodzimierz Tetmajer. On the balcony opposite the high altar, above the main entrance to the church there is a precious organ (26 voices, 2 manuals) from 1706. Since 1996 the basilica is a venue of summer organ concerts. During his first pilgrimage to Poland in 1979 John Paul II conferred upon the church the title of a basilica minor.

awo, KAI//mam