Shrine of St Anne in Aleksandrówka

The Shrine of St Anne in Aleksandrówka is a Baroque church with a convent in which Dominican enclosed nuns live. For more than five hundred years the place has attracted pilgrims, and the monument is entered in the heritage register.

The beginnings of the cult

At the end of the 15th century several miraculous events were said to have occurred in the surrounding forests, and in 1499 a figure of the crucified Christ was set up at the site of the apparitions. At the beginning of the 16th century the starost of Olsztyn founded a wooden chapel with a late Gothic figure of St Anne, and in 1554 another one, also wooden, was built. The figure, to which miracles were ascribed, is still an object of veneration today.

The church and convent

The brick church and the Bernardine monastery were built from 1609, founded by Joachim Ocieski and Janusz Ostrogski; the consecration took place on 27 August 1617. The building is single-nave, on a cross plan, with a semicircular apse, a dome over the middle of the nave and one tower. The high altar is in the Régence style, and the interior has Baroque-Rococo decoration. A painted “Dance of Death” from the early 18th century has survived here. Along the churchyard run cloisters with the Stations of the Cross from 1777.

After the January Uprising the Russian authorities dissolved the Bernardine monastery in 1864. In 1869 Dominican nuns arrived from Piotrków Trybunalski and have run it to this day.

Practical information

• Address: Aleksandrówka 42, Przyrów municipality.
• The convent is enclosed, so check the rules of entry to the church and the shrine grounds with the community before your visit.