Zarys dziejów bydgoskiej katedry

Abstract

Bydgoszcz Cathedral is only five years old, but its history is much longer. It was erected as an urban parish church founded by local residents in the middle of the 14th century. The original brick building, as a single-nave church, originated later that century. The edifice was devastated by fire in 1425 and then replaced by another at the same site in 1425–1466, again thanks to the city’s inhabitants. The building, which has survived to the present day, is a three-nave hallshaped Gothic church with an attached presbytery. Up to 1831, the temple was dedicated to four saints: Bishops Nicholas, Martin, Adalbert and Stanislas; later on however it is was re-dedicated to SS Nicholas and Martin. The church underwent remarkable expansion at the turn of the 15th century and then in 1650. Furthermore, between the 15th and 17th centuries, the building was annexed with four side chapels, of which only the one built in 1617 – a late-Renaissance construction with a dome – still exists. The wealthy furnishings of the church from the Old Polish era (15th–18th century) were devastated during the period of the Duchy of Warsaw (1807–1815) while used by the French and Russian troops. Therefore, the local register of historic objects contains only several dozen items, including three side Baroque altars, one of which (dedicated to the Holy Virgin Mary) has served as the main altar since the second decade of the 19th century. The central part of the altar is embellished with a painting of the Apocalyptic Madonna with the Infant Jesus in her left hand and a ruby rose in her right. The painting probably originated between 1467 and 1475. During the second half of the 17th century, it won fame for its miracles and thus the church turned into a local site of worship of the Holy Virgin. The painting has been crowned with papal crowns twice: in 1966 and 1999. Up until 1924, the temple constituted the centre of the town’s only Catholic parish, initially part of the Diocese of Włocławek and from 1765 of the Archdiocese of Gniezno. It was only in the late 20th and early 21st centuries that the church rose in status. In 1982–1996 the episcopal vicar for the city of Bydgoszcz resided here. In 1993 it became a collegiate church and six years later a cocathedral of the Archdiocese of Gniezno. Eventually, on March 25, 2004, Pope John Paul II elevated the church to the status of cathedral of the newly established Diocese of Bydgoszcz.