With a Polish Pope in the chair of St. Peter and the Fall of the Berlin Wall, the circumstances were ripe for a resurgence of the medieval Marian cult in Poland. The Fathers laid plans to erect an ambitious new shrine to Mary, to rival that of Czestochowa, in the village Licheń Stary, scene of a 19th-century Napoleonic soldier's devotion. The resulting Basilica and visitor centre, designed by Barbara Bielecka and blessed in 1999 by John Paul II, was completed in 2004 and is said to be the largest church building in Poland. The construction was said to have been funded entirely by pilgrims' donations.