Bernardine Basilica of Leżajsk · Subcarpathian Voivodeship, Poland · 1578
In a forest of southeastern Poland, in the year 1578, a poor man named Tomasz Michałek had three encounters with the Mother of God who appeared to him in light, asking that a chapel be built on the very spot. The Bernardine Basilica that grew there has been a place of pilgrimage and miracles ever since — and houses a magnificent organ that has filled the Polish forest with the sound of praise for almost four hundred years.
Tomasz Michałek and the Forest Apparitions
Tomasz Michałek was a humble cloth-worker, weak in body and gentle in spirit, who one day in 1578 was passing through the forests near the town of Leżajsk when he saw a brilliant light. The Mother of God appeared to him and asked that a chapel be built where she stood. Some weeks later, when nothing had been done, she appeared again. The third time she came, she touched his shoulder; from that day his health was restored, and he undertook with new strength to make the apparition known.
The local lords and the bishops investigated. The town was at first reluctant — the place was deep in the forest, far from any settlement — but pilgrim crowds began to gather, miracles were reported, and a chapel was built. In 1608 the Bernardines were given charge of the site, and they began the construction of the great fortified monastery and basilica that still stand: a fortress against Tatar raids and Cossack incursions as well as a sanctuary for the Mother of God.
Inside the basilica is the miraculous painting of the Madonna of Leżajsk, an altarpiece crowned with papal coronations. And there is the great Leżajsk organ — built between 1680 and 1693 by Stanisław Studziński — one of the most famous historical organs in Europe, with three keyboards, more than seventy stops, and a sound that has astonished pilgrims for three hundred and forty years.
The Sanctuary Today
The fortified monastery walls of Leżajsk still ring the basilica. Pilgrims pass through the great gates into a courtyard, then into the basilica itself, where the wonder-working image of the Mother is enshrined above a baroque altar of black marble and gold. Concerts of sacred music are held on the great organ on summer evenings; pilgrim Masses fill the basilica through the year.
Leżajsk is also a place of pilgrimage for Hasidic Jews, who come from around the world to honor the tomb of Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk in the same town. The two pilgrim peoples — Catholics and Hasidim — share a remarkable mutual respect at Leżajsk, in a corner of Poland that knew terrible suffering in the twentieth century.
A Prayer at Leżajsk
Mother of Leżajsk,
you who came to a poor weaver in a Polish forest
and asked for a chapel where there was nothing —
build a chapel in our own poverty.
Let the music that has risen from your basilica for centuries
rise also from our hearts.
Mother of the forests and the fortress walls,
pray for us. Amen.
Live from Leżajsk
The Bernardine Basilica of Leżajsk celebrates daily Mass and the Rosary. Concerts on the great historic organ are held throughout the year and are recorded for the wider Catholic and musical world.
Visit & Learn More
- Bernardine Sanctuary of Leżajsk: lezajsk.bernardyni.pl
- Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernardine_Basilica_of_Leżajsk
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