Lichen Basilica

The basilica at Lichen Stary was built between 1994 and 2004 to designs by Barbara Bielecka and is the largest church in Poland and among the largest in the world by floor area: about a hundred and twenty metres long, with a tower of a hundred and forty-one metres, a dome, and room for something over five thousand seated with far more standing. It went up in a village of a few hundred people, funded by pilgrim donations, because of a nineteenth-century apparition story attached to a small image of the Virgin now enshrined in the main altar. The architecture is deliberately eclectic - classical porticoes, gilded domes, a great deal of gold-coloured surface - and it divides Polish opinion sharply between those who see devotion at scale and those who see kitsch. Around it are a Calvary of the twentieth century, a golgotha built from stones, and a park of about twenty-three hectares laid out for processions.

History

The shrine traces its story to 1813, when Tomasz Kłossowski, a Polish soldier wounded near Leipzig, prayed to the Virgin Mary and, by tradition, saw her promise his recovery. The basilica was designed by Barbara Bielecka and built in 1994-2004 with pilgrims' donations; Pope John Paul II blessed it in 1999 and made it a minor basilica on 25 February 2005, and its organ of 157 stops, built in 2002-2007, is the largest in Poland (Wikipedia, Basilica of Our Lady of Licheń).

Highlights

• The largest church in Poland - about 120 metres long, seating over five thousand.
• A 141-metre tower - climbable, over flat Wielkopolska countryside.
• Deliberate eclecticism - porticoes, gilded domes, and a lot of gold-coloured surface.
• A processional park - twenty-three hectares with a Calvary and a stone golgotha.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

What to expect

It is entirely modern - there is no historic fabric here. Opinions on the architecture are strongly divided. Major pilgrimage days bring tens of thousands and the village cannot absorb them. The tower has a lift with queues.

Nearby

Konin is fifteen kilometres south; the Warta valley is west.

Key facts