St. Mary's Church

St. Mary's Church in Danzig, Poland has a rich history dating back to as early as 1243 when a wooden church of the Assumption was built at its site by Duke Swietopelk II. In 1343, the foundation stone for a new brick church was placed and the building of the six-span bay basilica was completed by 1360. In 1379, the construction of the present church began under the guidance of Danzig architect Heinrich Ungeradin. The church displays some differences from St. Mary's Church in Lübeck, but also has similarities with Gothic brick churches in Flanders and the Netherlands. The eastern part of the church was finished by 1447 and the tower was raised by two floors from 1452 to 1466. The main nave core was constructed under the supervision of Hans Brandt and the vaulting was finished under Heinrich Haetzl.

With the Reformation, most Danzigers embraced Lutheranism, including the parishioners of St. Mary's. After a brief religious conflict in 1525 and 1526, the new authorities favored a smooth transition to Lutheranism. In 1529, the first Lutheran sermon was given in St. Mary's and from 1536, a Lutheran cleric was permanently employed, allowing for both Lutheran services and Catholic masses to be held. The Lutheran congregation started to register personal data, with the oldest surviving register being that of burials starting in 1537.

In 1557, King Sigismund II Augustus of Poland allowed Danzig to celebrate communion with both bread and wine. As a result, Catholic masses were ended in all Danzig churches except St. Mary's, where they continued until 1572. During the early stages of Lutheranism, pastors and services at St. Mary's still honored Catholic traditions, including using liturgical garments. However, these traditions were eventually abandoned. The inventories of St. Mary's showed usage of Catholic-style accessories in early Lutheran services and the congregation adopted a church order in 1612, known as the Alte kirchenordnung. The first senior pastor of Danzig's Lutheran state church was Johannes Kittelius, serving from 1566 to 1590. The church was officially called the Supreme Parish Church of St. Mary's, reflecting its prominence in the city.

During the anti-Bathory rebellion in 1577, the defense of Danzig's political position led to the city hiring mercenaries at a high cost, resulting in the confiscation of gold and silver from the city and its Lutheran state church. Most of St. Mary's silver utensils were melted down to pay the mercenaries and by 1577, much of it was gone. The rebellion ended with a compromise in December 1577, with the city paying the king 200,000 florins and being granted religious freedom and Lutheran faith. The jurisdiction over Danzig's Lutherans in marital and sexual matters remained with Włocławek's Catholic officials as a compromise.

In the late 16th century, the Polish royal court tribunal made an attempt to restore Catholic services to St. Mary's Church in Danzig, but the City Council rejected the proposal. As a compromise, the Council authorized the construction of the Baroque Catholic Royal Chapel near St. Mary's Church to be used for the king's Catholic services during his visits to Danzig. The chapel was completed in 1681 and designed by Tylman van Gameren (Gamerski). At the time, the pastor of St. Mary's, Constantin Schütz, was a moderate pietist, which replaced the previously dominant Lutheran orthodox beliefs.

With the Partitions of Poland in 1793, Danzig lost its autonomy and became part of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1815. The Prussian government integrated St. Mary's Church and the Lutheran state church into the all-Prussian Lutheran church administration. In 1816, the Danzig Consistory was established and took on some of the responsibilities and members from the Danzig spiritual ministerium. The senior pastor of St. Mary's, Karl Friedrich Theodor Bertling, became a consistorial council member. In 1817, the government imposed a union of Reformed and Lutheran congregations within the kingdom. Despite the goal to unite all congregations under a unified Protestant confession, the vast Lutheran majority insisted on retaining the Augsburg Confession. As a result, St. Mary's remained a Lutheran church and congregation but joined the Evangelical Church in Prussia in 1821, a regional Protestant church body with united administration but no common confession, comprised mostly of Lutherans and some Reformed and united Protestant congregations.

In 1820, during Bertling's pastorship, long forgotten liturgical decorations and medieval garments were discovered in the sacristy of St. Mary's Church. Chaplain Franz Johann Joseph Bock, an art historian and curator of the Cologne Archdiocesan Museum, acquired some of the best pieces after reviewing the findings. These pieces were later displayed in an exhibition in 1853. Some of Bock's personal collection, including cloths and vestments from ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt obtained during the Crusades, were sold to London's Victoria and Albert Museum after his death.

From 1861 to 1864, a Sexton named Hinz searched storage spaces within the church and found even more historic liturgical garments. In the late 19th century, the congregation sold more than 200 pieces to the Berlin Museum of Decorative Arts. The remaining pieces, called the Danzig Parament Treasure, mostly dated from between 1350 and 1500. The congregation also sold other artifacts, such as the winged triptych by Jan van Wavere, which was acquired by Archduke Maximilian and is now housed in the Church of the Teutonic Order in Vienna, and the sculpture of the Madonna and Child by Michael of Augsburg from the main altar, which was sold to Count Alfons Sierakowski and is now in a chapel in Waplewo Wielkie. Prussian authorities also melted down gold and silver reliquaries for reuse.

Before World War II, St. Mary's Church was well preserved both inside and out. From 1920 to 1940, it became the principal church within the Protestant Regional Synodal Federation of the Free City of Danzig. During this time, the presbytery of the congregation recognized the value of its parament collection and initiated its cataloging. During a renovation in the 1920s, more historic garments and altar cloths were discovered. From 1930 to 1933, Walter Mannowsky, the director of the City Museum (now located in the National Museum in Gdańsk), created a four-volume inventory of the Parament Treasure.

During World War II, starting in 1942, major items of cultural heritage from Danzig (now Gdańsk) were removed and transported to safer locations with the coordination of the cultural heritage curator. This included items such as archives, artworks, and mobile furnishings from St. Mary's Church. Additionally, church bells from St. Mary's and other churches in Germany and occupied areas were requisitioned for war production. Bells were categorized based on their historical and artistic value, and those deemed less valuable, especially those cast after 1860, were melted down first.

St. Mary's Church was severely damaged in the March 1945 Red Army storming of Danzig. The roof burned down, most of the ceiling fell in, and vaults collapsed. Windows were shattered, and heat from the fire caused some bricks to melt, especially in the tower. The remaining bells also fell during the fire. The church floor, containing valuable gravestone slabs, was torn apart by Soviet soldiers who were attempting to loot the corpses buried underneath.

At the end of World War II, many of St. Mary's German parishioners fled to the west and took the parament treasure with them. The remaining ethnic Germans were expelled by Poland in March 1945, before the border changes reassigned the city to Poland. Most of the surviving parishioners settled in the British occupation zone in northern Germany, with Lübeck becoming a center for exiled Germans. The property of St. Mary's Lutheran congregation was expropriated, and the cemetery was despoiled. However, two unscathed bells from St. Mary's, dating from 1632 and 1719, were later found in the Hamburg bell cemetery. The parament treasure is on display in St. Mary's Church in Lübeck, where one of the bells, Dominicalis from 1719, is used by the Lutheran congregation.

Gdańsk was gradually repopulated by Poles, and St. Mary's Church was handed over to the Catholic diocese. Most of the interior artworks were evacuated for safekeeping and have returned to the church or are displayed in museums around Poland. The diocese is seeking to secure their return.

Reconstruction of St. Mary's Church started in 1946, and the roof was rebuilt using reinforced concrete in 1947. The church was reconsecrated in 1955 after basic reconstruction was finished, with ongoing efforts to renovate the interior. On November 20, 1965, Pope Paul VI elevated the church to the dignity of a basilica, and it became the Gdańsk Co-Cathedral in the Catholic Diocese of Gdańsk. The funeral of assassinated Mayor of Gdańsk, Paweł Adamowicz, took place at the basilica in 2019. In 2020, the 15th-century Gothic Pietas Domini altar, which was stolen by Germany during World War II, was returned to the church from Berlin.

St. Mary's Church is a magnificent example of late Gothic architecture, renowned for its intricate and masterful design elements. The building is a hall church, characterized by its triple-aisled nave and transept. The nave and transept are of comparable width and height, with some irregularities in the northern arm of the transept being the remnants of a previous church that once stood on the site.

One of the defining features of St. Mary's Church is its stunning vaulting. The main nave, transept, and presbytery are covered in net vaults, while the aisles boast beautiful crystal vaults. Much of the vaulting was restored after the destruction caused by World War II.

The exterior of the nave is simple yet striking, characterized by plain brick walls and tall, narrow pointed-arch windows. This design was made possible through the use of corbels and buttresses inside the church and the addition of chapels between them. Similar construction techniques can be seen in other renowned structures such as Albi Cathedral in Southern France and the Munich Frauenkirche. The gables are divided by brick pinnacles, with all corners of the building accentuated by turrets topped with metal headpieces, which were reconstructed after 1970. These turrets are similar to those found on the town hall of Lübeck, the two large Churches of Leiden, and the Ridderzaal in The Hague.

St. Mary's Church is also noteworthy for its seven portals, with one in the west under the steeple, one in the eastern façade of the choir, two on the northern side, and three on the southern side. Six of the portals (all except the western) are made of sandstone masonry, adding to the impressive architectural design of the church.

The interior of the church features masterpieces of Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque paintings, with the standout work being "The Last Judgement" by Hans Memling, now housed in the National Museum of Gdańsk. Some works were moved to the National Museum in Warsaw in 1945 but some were returned to the church in the 1990s.