This rather impressive building is Radom’s Cathedral of the Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Katedra Opieki Najświętszej Maryi Panny), photographed during my evening meander around the city. The neo-Gothic church was designed by the Warsaw architect Józef Pius Dziekoński (1844-1927) and construction started at some point around 1899, and its two 72-metre towers were modelled on the taller tower of St Mary’s Basilica in Kraków. I feel that I was rather fortunate with the photo as the yellow brick and the blue sky make the church look quite imposing.
The whole arrangement took a while to deliver. Radom was at the time under Russian rule and the first request to construct a larger Catholic church went to the authorities in 1873. It took until 1898 and a city that had grown to a population of 80,000 people until the building was agreed. The situation by then had become a little sub-optimal and even then it wasn’t a cathedral. That exciting promotion waited until 1992 when the Diocese of Radom was finally established.
One of its proudest moments comes from June 1972, when Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński (1901-1981) and Cardinal Karol Wojtyła (1920-2005), the future Pope John Paul II, led the bishops into the church carrying something the congregation had by that point stopped expecting, namely the copy of the Black Madonna of Częstochowa. The communist authorities had prevented the copy from leaving Jasna Góra since 1966, so for six years the faithful had processed behind an empty frame, which shows something of a rebellious stance.
My two loyal blog readers will note that I didn’t get chance to see the interior, so they’ll have to manage with just seeing the exterior.