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- Lesser Basilica of the Holy Cross
The Small Basilica of the Holy Cross of the Catholic Order of the Lazarists is considered one of the most important historical and architectural monuments of Poland. As early as 1510, the chapel of the Holy Cross stood on the site of the temple, in 1525 a wooden church was built in its place, which belonged to the department of St. John the Baptist. In 1615 the church was rebuilt, and in 1653, at the request of Queen Marie-Louise Gonzag, wife of King Jan Casimir, was transferred to the monastic order of the Lazarists and has since been the main temple of the order in Poland. During the invasion of the Swedes in 1657, the church was destroyed, the new building was built in 1679-1696 in the Baroque style according to the project of the court architect Joseph Shimon Bellotto. The consecration of the church was performed on October 14, 1696 by Cardinal Michal Stefan Radzievsky. The towers with domes were built in the years 1725-1737 under the direction of the architect Joseph Fontan, the facade was decorated in 1756 by Jakub Fontan, and the statues that decorated the facade were made by sculptor Jan Yuri Plersh. In 1858, a statue of Jesus Christ carrying a cross was erected in front of the church, cast from concrete in the workshop of Ferrant Marconi, designed by Andrzej Pruszinski, in 1889 it was replaced by an exact bronze copy. In 1880, according to the will of Frederic Chopin, an urn with his heart was buried in the column of the church, and in 1929 - an urn with the heart of the writer, Nobel Prize winner, Vladislav Reymont. The Basilica of the Holy Cross contains epitaphs for the writer Boleslav Prus, politician Jozef Ignatius Kraszewski, poet Juliusz Slovacki and the head of the Polish government during World War II, Władysław Sikorski. In 1939, due to the bombing of Warsaw, the roof and walls were partially destroyed in the church, the images of the main altar were destroyed, and in 1944, during the Warsaw Uprising, the church was first looted and then blown up by the Nazis. The facade, the vaults above the lower church, the Great Altar, the altars of St. Roch and St. Vincent de Paul, the paintings "The Lord's Supper" by Francis Smuglevich and the "Crucifixion" by Yuri Semiginovsky were completely destroyed. In January 1945, before the retreat from Warsaw, the Nazis blew up the bell tower, part of the bells and the statue of Jesus Christ were taken out for the purpose of subsequent re-melting, fortunately, the sculpture survived. The restoration of the temple was carried out from 1945 to 1953 according to the project of the architect Zborovsky, the reconstruction of the interior took much longer, the repair of the chapel of Our Lady of Czestochowska was completed only in 2006. Since 1965, the academic Polish community “The Tree of Life” has been gathering at the church, in 2002 Pope John Paul II granted the church the status of the Lesser Basilica.
