Long before it was a Christian pilgrimage site, Łysa Góra, the “Bald Mountain”, had already taken hold of people’s imagination. Its wooded summit is strewn with huge stones, which folk tradition said were the ruins of a castle built by giants. It was almost certainly a pagan Slavic sanctuary when the first Benedictine monks arrived. They didn’t choose an empty hilltop. They chose a place that was already holy.
A mountain becomes “Holy Cross”
The Benedictine abbey was founded in the 1130s by Bolesław the Wry-mouthed. Around 1305–1306, Ladislaus the Short gave it relics of the Holy Cross, and the mountain took a new name: Święty Krzyż, Holy Cross. Władysław Jagiełło came here before his coronation and began the custom of climbing the mountain on foot from Nowa Słupia. For the Jagiellonian kings, this was Poland’s spiritual heartland. The whole region, Świętokrzyskie, still carries the mountain’s name.
The long slide
The abbey’s history is one of destruction followed by rebuilding:
- 1259–1260: captured and destroyed by the Tatar army, then rebuilt.
- 17th century: burned by the Swedes during the Deluge, then rebuilt.
- 1777: lightning started a fire that consumed the church and all the monastic buildings. Only the relics and the library were saved. The monks rebuilt once more.
The worst blow, though, came from paperwork rather than from fire or armies.
1819: politics dressed as reform
After the Partitions, the abbey passed first to Austria (1795) and then to the Russian-controlled Kingdom of Poland (1815). In 1819, Pope Pius VII’s bull Ex imposita Nobis reorganised the dioceses. The dissolution that followed was largely the work of two Poles: the politician Stanisław Kostka Potocki and the priest Stanisław Staszic. Thirty male and eight female monasteries were to be closed. Bishop Malczewski opposed it, but on 17 April 1819 several bishops signed the order, and Święty Krzyż was among the abbeys dissolved.
Centuries of manuscripts, books and treasures were scattered by decree. A handful of monks stayed on until 1853. After the last one died, the buildings became a home for retired priests.
From monastery to prison to camp
In the 1880s the empty abbey was turned into a Russian jail. Prisoners were held in the south-western wing behind a high wall, working in craft workshops. In 1941–42 the Germans used part of the complex as a camp for Soviet prisoners of war. It is hard to imagine a sadder use for a place of prayer.
What survived
The relics of the Holy Cross remained through dispersal, prison walls and war: five particles kept in an armoured tabernacle and a gold two-armed reliquary. Art restorers examined them as recently as 2002. The Benedictines came back briefly in 1920. In 1936 the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate took over, and they are still the hosts today. They have restored the interior and taken down the old prison wall and watchtowers. In 2013 the church was made a Minor Basilica.
What this means for the pilgrim
Few places let you see a nation’s whole spiritual history in a single complex, and Święty Krzyż is one of them. You can walk through a Gothic cloister, a Baroque church, and a former prison wing that now houses a nature museum. The on-site museum covers the full arc: prehistory, the Benedictines, the dissolution, the prison and the war.
The dissolution of 1819 was the lowest point in the story, but the story didn’t end there. The relics are still on the mountain, pilgrims still climb it, and the monks have come back.
Walking up? The traditional royal route climbs from Nowa Słupia. Our longer walks approach from Święta Katarzyna over Łysica. Get in touch if you’d like to walk it with a guide.
Leave a Reply