A Neo-Romanesque minor basilica from 1849, the centre of the shrine of Our Lady of Piekary, with a Calvary and a shrine museum.
The Basilica of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St Bartholomew in Piekary Śląskie is a Neo-Romanesque church from 1849, a minor basilica and the heart of the shrine of Our Lady of Justice and Social Love. Pilgrimages have come to Piekary for centuries, and the church is linked with an extensive Calvary on Cerekwica hill. It is an active place of worship, so visits have to be fitted around services.
The parish in Piekary has existed since 1303, when a wooden church of St Bartholomew was said to have stood here. In a side altar was a 15th-century picture of the Mother of God, moved to the high altar on 27 August 1659, which the parish regards as the beginning of the cult proper. Accounts of healings were linked with it, and in 1676 pilgrims from Tarnowskie Góry vowed an annual pilgrimage after a plague receded in their town. The people of Tarnowskie Góry still make the pilgrimage to Piekary on the first Sunday of July.
In 1680 the picture was taken to Prague and Hradec Králové, where the Archbishop of Prague recognised it as a miraculous image. In 1702 the original picture was taken away, for fear of its destruction, to the Church of the Holy Cross in Opole, where it remains to this day. In the Piekary basilica a 17th-century copy measuring 99 by 77 cm is venerated.
The present church was built on the initiative of the parish priest Jan Alojzy Ficek, known as the Apostle of Silesia, who served as parish priest in 1826-1862. It was consecrated on 22 August 1849 by the Bishop of Wrocław, Melchior von Diepenbrock. The church is of brick and Neo-Romanesque. The title of minor basilica was conferred on it on 1 December 1962 by Pope John XXIII.
The picture of Our Lady of Piekary was crowned on 15 August 1925 with papal crowns funded by Pius XI. The crowns were stolen on the night of 7-8 December 1940, and the picture was crowned again in 1965. After another theft in 1984 a re-coronation took place in 1985, and the stolen crowns returned to the basilica in 2015. Since 2000 the picture has been covered by a silver curtain with a panorama of the town, drawn back every day before the first Mass to special fanfares.
The organ was built in the mid-19th century by Johann Mathias Vinzenz Haas, and in 1989 it was rebuilt to 59 stops. Around the church, to a design by Daniel Groetschl, stand four chapels and the Paradise Square with the chapel of St Raphael, which contains an altar from the original church. Along the wall stand stone-carved figures of the twelve Apostles.
According to the shrine's website, the Calvary on Cerekwica hill is the only calvary not founded by a person of noble birth: it was built thanks to the generosity and labour of the faithful, including miners and steelworkers. The idea was made public in 1854 by Father Ficek, the first chapel was built in 1869, and the buildings were consecrated on 21 June 1896. On almost 10 ha stand 14 chapels of the Way of the Cross, 15 rosary chapels and 11 others, and in the middle of the hill the Neo-Gothic Church of the Resurrection of the Lord, designed by Juliusz Kapacki.
The Glorious Mystery of the Passion was revived in 2015. Crowds of many thousands take part in the pilgrimages of men and women: the men on the last Sunday of May and the women on the Sunday after 15 August. At the entrance from Bytomska Street stands a monument to John Paul II, who as a bishop and cardinal made pilgrimages to Piekary in 1965-1978.
The shrine museum was opened in 2009, on the 350th anniversary of the cult. It has three rooms: the main one, on the history of the cult and the picture, a papal one with mementoes of Karol Wojtyła, and a Calvary one with wooden sculptures from the former chapels. Here are votive offerings of pilgrims, chalices and liturgical vessels, including gifts from King John III Sobieski.
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