
Situated on the Warta river, Poznań – the capital town of Wielkopolska the land and Province and of the Poznań Archdiocese – is an important point as you go along the Piast Route.
The Dominican Nuns’ convent was established in 1282, the foundation of Przedpełkowic brothers, with a contribution from Duke Przemysł (Premislaus) II. The Poznań monastic house was the oldest Dominican Nuns’ nunnery in Poland. Shortly after it was founded, an oratory (today’s presbytery) was set up, with a nave added to it in the former half of 14th century. Toward the end of 15th c., a chapel was annexed at the north, expanded in the following century and actually transformed into a side nave. The church’s patroness was, from 1365 onwards, St. Catherine of Alexandria; hence, the Dominican maidens were popularly referred to as katarzynkas (Catherine’s women, in a rough approximation), their temple being nicknamed the katarzynkas’ church. The building has been harassed by various misfortunes: destroyed by a1536 fire of the town, it was vandalised in mid-17th century in the course of the war against the Swedes; in the Napoleonic era, the French and then, Russian troops were stationed there. The three-wing convent’s building, closing up, together with the church, a quadrilateral courtyard, was probably in existence in as early as 15th century. In the early 16th c., the nuns took over two town donjons neighbouring on the convent. Due to bad technical condition, a major part of the nunnery building was dismantled in 1816. Soon after, in 1822, the Prussian authorities liquidated the convent; the closed-down church served as a military warehouse afterwards. The convent was eventually taken over in 1926 by the Salesian Friars who established there an educative institution for artisan youth.
The Salesians pursued an active pastoral work, gathering quite a big group of young people. Five of their charges (the so-called Poznań Five: Czesław Jóźwiak, Edward Kaźmierski, Franciszek Kęsy, Edward Klinik i Jarogniew Wojciechowski), involved in conspiratorial work during the Nazi occupation, were arrested and executed by the Germans. Their attitude displayed during the investigation, full of arduous faith, proved to be prevalent for Pope John Paul II who beatified them in 1999 among 108 martyrs of faith – the victims of persecutions suffered by the Catholic Church in Poland in 1939–1945.
The gothic church of Our Lady the Fellowship of Believers is a two-nave building with a narrower straight-enclosed presbytery. Its original eastern top was reconstructed in 1896. The presbytery has preserved a three-field ribbed vault (probably dating to 2nd half of 13th century), the nave being covered by a sail vault and the northern nave, by a late-gothic starry vault. The interior’s furnishings date for most part to the years 1927–1930.
The cloister building is adjacent to the church at the north. A mediaeval donjon, rebuilt in 16th century, adjoins to the building’s north-western corner.
Address:
ul. Wroniecka 9
61-763 Poznań