Niepokalanów
Niepokalanów (translated: City of Mary ; literally: City of the Immaculate ) is part of the village Paprotnia in the Teresin municipality in Poland. Niepokalanów is located about 40 km west of Warsaw . The place was founded by the Franciscan Minorite Maximilian Kolbe for missionary purposes.
history
In 1921 Kolbe began in Cracow with the publication of the monthly “ Rycerz Niepokalanej ” (translated: Knight of the Immaculate Virgin). Due to lack of space, he soon relocated his work to the Franciscan monastery in Grodno , but this job too did not meet his requirements; the place was too small for his broad missionary and publication plans.
When Prince Jan Drucki-Lubecki gave him a large piece of land 40 km west of Warsaw in 1927 , he was finally able to fully expand his missionary activity. Several monks settled in barracks and within a few years a town called Kolbe Niepokalanów was built on the property. A large monastery, a press center and various accommodations for conferences etc. were built in the city. Ä. built.
In 1930 Kolbe left Poland for missionary work in Japan. When he returned in 1936, he continued to expand his mission city. Niepokalanów received a train station, an airfield and a radio station.
After the German invasion of Poland , Niepokalanów was occupied and around forty friars, including Kolbe, were arrested. After Kolbe was released on December 8, 1939, he organized Niepokalanów as a place of refuge for Jews and other persecuted people. After being arrested again in 1941, he was murdered in the Auschwitz concentration camp .
On June 18, 1983 Pope John Paul II visited the basilica in Niepokalanów. The monastery had 120 monks in 2018.
Niepokalanów today
Today, especially because of Maximilian Kolbe's canonization , Niepokalanów is a popular Marian pilgrimage site , which is visited by several hundred pilgrims every year. From the founding time before the Second World War , various barracks, a statue of the Virgin Mary and a small chapel, which is now a museum, have been preserved. The grave of Franciszek Gajowniczek , who died in 1995 and whose life Maximilian Kolbe saved by being a martyr, is also located in the Niepokalanów cemetery .
literature
- Christof Dahm: KOLBE, Maximilian Maria. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 4, Bautz, Herzberg 1992, ISBN 3-88309-038-7 , Sp. 327-331.
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 12 ' N , 20 ° 26' E
Individual evidence
- ^ Marie Arnaud, Jacques Debs: Monastères d'Europe - Les témoins de l'invisible . Arte Éditions, Issy-les-Moulineaux 2018, ISBN 978-2-7369-0316-9 , pp. 153 .