Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Sosnowiec

The Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus stands on 3 Maja Street, next to the Sosnowiec Główny railway station. Residents call it the “railway church”, because railway workers and the townspeople supported its construction.

A church built in a year

Rapidly growing Sosnowiec did not have enough churches, so in October 1861 the residents asked for permission to build one. It was built within a year and blessed on 11 November 1862 in the presence of Paulines from Jasna Góra and Reformed Franciscans from Warsaw. Until the end of the January Uprising it was looked after by Paulines travelling from Leśniów. The building was entered in the heritage register in 1997.

The neo-Gothic body and the interior

The church is neo-Gothic: a rectangular nave with a five-sided chancel, an oblong sacristy and a small tower with a gallery and an ornamental helm, with a porch at ground level. The six large pointed-arched windows of the nave have stained glass with Saints Stanislaus, Casimir, Barbara and Theresa. In the round window of the chancel is Our Lady of Częstochowa.

Parts of the original furnishings have survived in the interior: a figure of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the high altar, carved by Paweł Turbas of Olkusz, a one-manual organ from 1864 by Józef Szymański of Częstochowa, and a spiral staircase with a wrought-iron balustrade leading to the gallery. In 2011 the neo-Gothic high altar was recreated on the basis of drawings of the former interior. In front of the entrance stand a stone figure of Christ carved by Pruszyński in 1912 and a sundial.

The church park with chapels

A group of chapels stands in the park. One is a stone grotto with an iron figure of Our Lady of Lourdes, brought in 1904. Masses were held in the grotto even before the church was built. Next to it is the Holy Sepulchre chapel. On the wall closing the park on the south are the stations of the Way of the Cross, ending with a brick chapel of St Anthony of Padua. The paintings were blessed in 1915; they were attributed to Włodzimierz Tetmajer, but expert examinations ruled this out.

The church also contains a plaque commemorating Fr Franciszek Raczyński, blessed in 2004.

Practical information

• Address: 3 Maja 20, Sosnowiec, next to Sosnowiec Główny station.
• A park with chapels and grottoes surrounds the church; the active church is looked after by the parish of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, where you can check the rules for going inside.
• Nearby: the Zagłębie Theatre (about 600 m) and Sielec Park.