The Astounding Cistercian Churches of Rural Poland

lubiaz-klasztor-opactwo-cystersow-fot-bartosz-makowski-reporter-en_01466683_1742.jpg, full-width, Lubiąż, photo: Bartosz Makowski / Reporter / East News, top, #ffd900

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As you travel through the Polish countryside, one of the most common and regular sights that catches your eye is an unassuming church steeple elegantly rising above the tree line surrounding a passing village. Such a sight is typical across much of Europe, of course. In Poland, the Christian devotional life centred in and represented by such churches is especially robust.

Once in a while, though, you stumble across a church in rural Poland that genuinely astounds you due to its size, its ornateness, its exceptional beauty, its sprawling estate, its accompanying buildings, and indeed its perfectly picturesque location. You immediately ask: what in the world is this church doing here? The odds are that your newly discovered wonder is or was a church founded by the Catholic monks of the mediaeval Cistercian Order, and that it has been inspiring people to ask that same question for the better part of a millennium.

Who were the Cistercians?

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The Abbey of Fontenay, Burgundy, France, photo: iStock / Getty Images

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The Cistercian Order was one of several new orders of monks that emerged in Europe in the 11^th and 12^th centuries, whose focus was reforming, restoring, or improving organised Christian religious life. It was a reformed branch of the ancient Benedictine Order, and the original Cistercian community was Cîteaux Abbey in France. From there, offshoot communities were founded and proliferated throughout Europe by the early 13^th century, including into the mediaeval Kingdom of Poland.

The early Cistercians committed themselves to a unique form of austerity by distancing their abbeys from large existing settlements and by relying on their own manual labour and self-sufficiency. The monks themselves performed much of the agricultural and artisanal work necessary to keep their individual community functioning. In contrast, Benedictine monks tended to focus on prayer and domestic work within their own cloister, and their abbeys required substantial surrounding settlements to sustain the religious community. Meanwhile, Franciscan and Dominican friars often served the urban poor from houses established within towns and cities and depended on almsgiving and tithing.

The first Cistercians also developed a unique style of architecture for their churches and abbeys, which became one of the most beautiful aesthetic legacies of the European Middle Ages. Their builders used cutting-edge core principles from both Romanesque and Gothic architectural styles, but they left church interiors and exteriors relatively unadorned so that the monks could focus on prayer and contemplation. The resulting structures drew from, complemented, and in turn beautified the natural landscape in which they were ensconced. In contrast, Benedictines often maintained older Romanesque churches, and Franciscans and Dominicans tended to build smaller churches according to local styles.

The Cistercian Order comes to Poland

In mediaeval Poland, these particular characteristics of the Cistercian Order informed its unusual impact on the rural population and landscape. As new Cistercian communities came to the region, princes and lords typically granted them tracts of undeveloped land well away from larger settlements and allowed them significant autonomy. The Cistercians thus developed rather isolated communities. They came to interact predominantly with rural inhabitants, and they became one of the only religious orders that rural inhabitants encountered regularly. Many of these lay people were still being introduced to Christianity, in fact (Poland’s first Christian ruler, Duke Mieszko I, had been baptised only in 966). Thus the Cistercians became responsible for converting and catechising much of Poland’s rural population to Christianity. Their modern, monumental, yet pious architecture symbolised and projected this responsibility and endeavour in the context of their remote, regional sites. Poland’s mediaeval Cistercian abbeys were built using principles from the order’s particular architectural style, but with local or regional twists. Then in the early modern period, many were rebuilt or refurbished using a Baroque style (inspired by the Catholic Reformation). Few of these abbeys are still occupied or run by the Cistercian Order today. All of them continue to astound unsuspecting onlookers from unexpected locations.

Regardless of their particular style, churches and abbeys founded by the mediaeval Cistercian Order dramatically and memorably shape and decorate rural landscapes across Poland. They offer widely varying opportunities – for both devotion and tourism – reflective of the distinct histories of the country’s different regions. Stumbling across any or all of them is well worth your time. Here are some highlights, grouped by region!

Silesia

In Silesia, monumental Cistercian abbeys tucked into green, isolated glens illustrate how the grandeur of counter-Reformation Baroque architecture still blurs the distinction between Heaven and Earth in the eyes of pilgrims and passers-by alike.

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Lubiąż, photo: Bartosz Makowski / Reporter / East News

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Lubiąż Abbey, located 50km northwest of Wrocław, is the largest Cistercian monastery and one of the largest Christian structures in the world. It was established in the late 12^th century, built on land reclaimed from marshes along the Oder River, granted to the Cistercian Order by the Duke of Silesia due to its undeveloped but strategic location. Its first brick gothic church was a novelty in the region. After enduring the chaos and destruction of the religious wars of the early modern period, the brothers renovated and expanded the entire complex in the Baroque style during the late 17^th century, bringing it to its splendid current form. During the turmoil and wars of the modern period, though, the Cistercians were expelled and the abbey fell into disrepair.

Now open for touring thanks to ongoing renovations, the residential and institutional interiors offer some of the most ornate and beautiful examples of Baroque artwork anywhere in Europe. Most striking, though, is the monumental scale of the buildings and complex. It is unparalleled and unforgettable. The isolated Lubiąż Abbey commands your attention and almost appears as if the natural landscape of the Oder Valley were designed around it.

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Krzeszów, photo: Monkpress / East News

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Krzeszów Abbey, located 100km southwest of Wrocław, is a hidden jewel of Baroque architecture. In the late 13^th century, the Cistercians took over this remote abbey from the Benedictines and built a new gothic church in its sheltered valley in short order. It also suffered destruction during the early modern religious wars, and so the brothers renovated the church and outbuildings in the Baroque style in the mid-18^th century. Since then, several different religious communities have moved in and out at the whims of conquering secular governments.

The abbey comprises several lovely buildings, the yellow walls of which stand out seductively from the surrounding green hills as you approach, as if placed from above to draw worshippers in. The interior of the basilica then offers an endless array of Baroque grandeur that is simultaneously heavy but light, ornate but simple, regular but naturalistic, and eye-catching but contemplative. Krzeszów Abbey is a picturesque gem that gets more and more magnificent the closer you look.

Other Cistercian abbeys in Silesia: Henryków, Ruda, Trzebnica.

Lesser Poland

In Lesser Poland, quintessential and ancient stone churches built on the outskirts of towns demonstrate the original ministerial function of Cistercian communities.

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Jędrzejów, photo: Rafał Jabłoński / East News

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Jędrzejów Abbey, located 3km outside the town centre of Jędrzejów (well outside of the mediaeval town limits), represents the adaptability of Cistercian abbeys. It was founded by French Cistercians in the mid-12^th century, who rebuilt an existing church and small cloister in their own style and then ministered to residents of the nearby villages. After a fire destroyed parts of the church in the mid-18^th century, the brothers rebuilt the structure using Baroque elements on top of the surviving mediaeval stonework. The interior boasts successive glorious paintings and altars that seem to occupy more space than the church’s surface area can even provide. Especially impressive is the enormous blue and gold pipe organ that occupies the rear of the church, indeed looming over congregants’ heads. The structure also playfully deceives would-be entrants with a false front (facing town to the east).

Jędrzejów Abbey’s monumental church, quaint cloister, and manicured walled-in grounds now mark the edge of town, with residential neighbourhoods on one side and seemingly endless rapeseed fields stretching to the horizon on the other. Nonetheless, it is easy to see why the Cistercians would use such a location and structure both to escape the secular world and to bring rural people to the Church.

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Wąchock, photo: Gerard / Reporter / East News

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Wąchock Abbey is located between the towns of Skarżysko-Kamienna and Starachowice, neither of which were large settlements at the time of its founding. This abbey embodies Cistercian perseverance. The Cistercian Order was granted the land from the Bishop of Kraków in the late 12^th century. The monks brought with them some of the best stone masons in Poland, and together they built an ambitiously designed yet modest Romanesque church and cloister on the valley floor alongside the Kamienna River. Damaged and rebuilt several times, the church now comprises lively Baroque arches, altars and adornments encased within patchwork but delightful mediaeval stone walls, all standing watch over a peaceful pond and small town that sits between two forested outer ridges of the Świętokrzyskie Hills. The attached abbey is more modern with an impressive clock tower. Wąchock is one of the few abbeys on this list that still houses Cistercian brothers, and they maintain a museum dedicated to the order on the grounds. It is an enchanting place to learn about the still living centuries-old history of Cistercian ministries in Poland.

Other Cistercian abbeys in Lesser Poland: Sulejów, Mogiła

Greater Poland

In Greater Poland, weathered abbeys in flawless aesthetic locations embody the distance from the secular world sought by the first Cistercians.

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Ląd, photo: Wojciech Stróżyk / East News

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Ląd Abbey and its environs may be Greater Poland’s best kept secret. It is located halfway between Łódź and Poznań, not far off the A2, but truly in a world of its own. It sits majestically on a promontory guarding a bend in the Warta River and overlooking the dynamic Warta Landscape Park. The Cistercians founded the abbey in the mid-12^th century, near an existing small village. The lower floor of the cloister still maintains its original mediaeval architecture, including impressive wall paintings, an uncommonly square chapter house (now chapel), and a small but invigoratingly reverent original mediaeval chapel.

The abbey church is even more invigorating. It was rebuilt and decorated in the Baroque style in two distinct parts dating from the late 17^th century and the mid-18^th century. The nave, or western part, is a marvel of engineering. It sits entirely under an immense dome and cupola, and the architect creatively used large windows and mirrors to make the interior as bright as possible throughout the day. Guided tours are available daily. The complex is no longer Cistercian, but rather serves as a seminary for the Salesians of Don Bosco. It is difficult to imagine a more peaceful or scenic location, in any season, to study, work, play or pray.

Other Cistercian abbeys in Greater Poland: Bierzwnik

Pomerania

Finally, in Pomerania, a pristine and daunting brick gothic cathedral nestled in a river’s wooded bend proclaims the uninterrupted legacy of the exceptional Cistercian order.

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Pelplin, photo: Albin Marciniak / East News

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Pelplin Abbey is the most unique site on this list. It is located 15km east of Starogard Gdański, now in the centre of the town of Pelplin. Founded in the mid-13^th century by the Duke of Pomerania (Szczecin), its first community of German Cistercians built a vast church and accompanying cloister in the Baltic brick Gothic style along a pristine stretch of the Wierzyca River. Still standing grandly, the basilica appears more akin to the cathedrals in Gniezno, Poznań or Wrocław than to any other church on this list. Throughout the premodern period, it was a leading religious and intellectual centre for northern Poland. The Cistercians were forced out in the 19^th century, but since then their abbey church has served as the cathedral of the Diocese of Pelplin.

Its windows, arches, altars and artwork are breath-taking, and its museum even contains an original Gutenberg Bible, a prized acquisition of the mediaeval brothers of the Order. When compared to other Cistercian abbeys in modern Poland, Pelplin demonstrates the diversity of the mediaeval Cistercian Order, but it also reinforces the idea of the Cistercian Order’s distinct charism and modus operandi that has beautifully transformed the people and landscape of Poland and much of Europe for nearly a millennium.

Other Cistercian abbeys in Pomerania: Koronowo

Written by Bryan Kozik, June 2021

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