page_title: Jesuit Church, Warsaw
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Jesuit Church, Warsaw / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Church door Warsaw by Igor Mitoraj
context_page_description: The Jesuit Church, also known as Church of the Gracious Mother of God, is an ornate church within the Old Town precinct in Warsaw, Poland. The temple stands on Świętojańska Street, adjacent to St John's Cathedral, and is one of the most notable mannerist-style churches in Warsaw.
context_section_description: The Jesuit Church was founded by King Sigismund III Vasa and Podkomorzy Andrzej Bobola (the Old) at Piotr Skarga's initiative, in 1609, for the Jesuits. The main building was constructed between 1609 and 1626 in the Polish Mannerist style by Jan Frankiewicz.
  In 1627 the church was encompassed with three chapels, and in 1635 Urszula Meyerin, a great supporter of the Society of Jesus, was buried within. Meyerin funded a silver tabernacle for the church. She was also King Sigismund III's mistress, and was politically influential. Her grave was plundered and destroyed by the Swedes and Brandenburg Germans, in the 1650s, during the Deluge.
  A vestibule was added to the interior of the temple in 1633, and a choir was added three years later. An altar made of silver was installed by Cardinal Charles Ferdinand Vasa in the 1640s. The interior of the church was damaged and looted in 1656.
  An icon of Our Lady of Graces (Matka Boża Łaskawa), a gift from the Pope Innocent X, was introduced to the church and crowned in 1651. Its veneration has been growing, especially since the epidemic in 1664, when Blessed Virgin Mary was believed to save the city.
  In later years the building became more and more ornate, with baroque furnishings and marble altars and floors. Two more chapels were added. When the order of Jesuits was dissolved in 1773, the church changed ownership several times. For some time it was a school church, later it was demoted to the role of the magazine of church furnishings, and then it was given to the order of Piarists. The Jesuits did not get the church back until the end of the First World War. In the 1920s and 1930s the church was renovated.
  During World War II, after the Germans suppressed the Warsaw Uprising, they razed the Jesuit Church to the ground. All that remained of the four-hundred-year-old edifice was a great pile of rubble. Between the 1950s and 1973, the church was rebuilt in a simplified architectural style.
caption: Church doors by Igor Mitoraj
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-H9", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2009:09:15 09:31:23", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "256", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Make": "SONY", "Thumbnail Model": "DSC-H9", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Rotated 90 CCW", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail DateTime": "2009:09:15 09:31:23", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "9380", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "10296", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/100", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2009:09:15 09:31:23", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2009:09:15 09:31:23", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "23/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "137/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3264", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2448", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "9174", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}