Jasna Górka Shrine in Ślemień

The Jasna Górka Shrine in Ślemień stands above the village buildings, on the slopes of Jasna Górka hill. It is a church of 1862-1866, entered in the heritage register, surrounded by a tradition of Marian devotion that, according to local tradition, goes back to the mid-14th century.

Origins of the cult

According to tradition, a highlander returning from Częstochowa immersed in a spring in a meadow called Kumorkowe Groni a picture brought from Jasna Góra, and the place was said to have become the site of a Marian apparition. Pilgrims began to come to the spring and in the 17th century a chapel was built. In 1623 the Komorowski family brought a Marian image to the church in Rychwałd, but pilgrimages to Ślemień continued. Tradition says that the parish priests of Rychwałd and Sucha filled in the spring and destroyed the chapel, after which pilgrimages were directed only to Rychwałd. In the mid-19th century Józef Pochopień of Ślemień funded a figure of Our Lady that still stands and a small chapel, and the present church was built in 1866 on the initiative of Father Antoni Antałkiewicz, on the 900th anniversary of the baptism of Poland.

Interior and grotto

The Baroque high altar has four columns and figures of St Casimir and St John of Kęty, and in its crown the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove. The central place is taken by a 19th-century copy of the Jasna Góra icon, painted on a board by Błażej Luks and covered by two curtains: one with St Anne, St Joachim and Mary, and one with the apparition at Fátima. The side altars hold Our Lady of Good Counsel and a crucifix, and the vault is decorated with scenes from the life of Mary. Under the church is a tunnel-like stone grotto with a figure of the Immaculate Conception; the spring in the grotto is regarded as miraculous. The image was crowned in 2016 by Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz.

Nearby

Two kilometres away lies the Żywiec Ethnographic Park in Ślemień. The shrine is also close to the Church of the Nativity of St John the Baptist, which is the parish church of the village.

Practical information

• Address: ul. Kościelna 1, Ślemień.
• This is a place of worship, so visiting must be adapted to services. Current information is given by the parish in Ślemień.