Czestochowa - Heart of Poland

The first order of business after arrival in Czestochowa was lunch so we found a Greek restaurant and ordered a huge meat platter for our family. It was way too much food and we were in a hurry to get out of there to meet our tour. We had to walk all the way around the big cathedral complex including some big brick walls with an outdoor altar set up and chairs in rows on the lawn as if for a big show.

Our tour guide was a funny little nun with a charming accent who had lived in Toronto and Ukraine. I asked her about Putin and she was surprisingly candid and outspoken. She called him a liar and accused him of sending Russians into Ukraine years ahead of the invasion to start taking things over. Most tour guides try to avoid politics but she was different.

This church had an older gothic section and a rebuilt (after a fire) baroque chapel that was much brighter and more ornate with paintings on the ceilings. There was a service going on in the main chapel and it was odd to have tourists filtering by snapping photos while priests were singing and people were crossing themselves.

The walls of the main chapel are lined with metal mesh on which are hung all manner of things depicting miracles that have happened in the church. There are silver sets of eyes for all the people who have regained their sight, a wall of crutches for people who regained the use of a limb, and other items. The Black Madonna is the centerpiece of the altar. Apparently the faces turned black only when they put a varnish over it to protect it sometime in the 1900s, but she has been known as the black madonna ever since. She is supposed to have been painted St. Luke, then the relic was taken to Constantinople where it was bought by a Polish noble and taken to Kiev and later to Poland. It gained fame during the 1600s when the Swedes conquered Poland but could not take the fortress and cathedral at Czestochowa. We could still see where cannonballs were lodged in some of the walls.

We started to see what a big role Pope John Paul played in Poland, They have the blood-stained sash that he wore when an would-be assassin shot him at the Vatican on display. There is a massive statue of him kneeling outside on the grounds as well.

The Black Madonna gets dressed up differently sometimes. They have made dresses for her of gold and jewels for every occasion and put these over the painting like a paper doll. The museum showed some of these as well as other relics and gifts that various popes and famous people had left there. Apparently pilgrims come from not just all over Poland but all over the world to this place.