Archikolegiata pw. Najświętszej Maryi Panny Królowej i św. Aleksego
Historic church · Tum · Łódź
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Built between 1141 and 1161 on the site of an earlier Benedictine monastery, this collegiate church ranks among Poland's finest Romanesque monuments. Consecrated in 1161, it survived a Lithuanian raid that burned it in 1293, and later baroque alterations in the 1760s. Postwar restorers stripped those additions to return the twin-towered stone church to its medieval form, now protected as a historical monument.
The consecration in 1161 drew nearly every bishop and prince in the kingdom, including Bolesław IV, underscoring the church's standing as one of Poland's most important religious sites at the time. In September 1939, during the Battle of the Bzura, a German soldier used the church's north tower as an artillery spotting post; Polish shelling damaged the tower in response, and Luftwaffe bombing runs that followed gutted the roof and interior furnishings, though the stone walls survived intact. Reconstruction began in 1947 under architects Jan Zachwatowicz and Jan Koszczyc-Witkiewicz, and the church was re-consecrated in 1961. A 12th-century wall painting of Christ flanked by the four evangelist symbols survives in the lower western apse, among the oldest surviving church polychrome in Poland.
What you see
The north portal's tympanum carries a carved Virgin and Child flanked by angels, framed by zoomorphic capitals of goats and eagles and blocks showing a lion locked in combat with a griffin.
romanesquepomnik historiilegend
zamkilodzkie.pl/pliki/tum.htm ↗Google Maps ↗
History & landmarks nearby
Common questions
- Why stop at Archikolegiata pw. Najświętszej Maryi Panny Królowej i św. Aleksego on a bike ride?
- Built between 1141 and 1161 on the site of an earlier Benedictine monastery, this collegiate church ranks among Poland's finest Romanesque monuments. Consecrated in 1161, it survived a Lithuanian raid that burned it in 1293, and later baroque alterations in the 1760s. Postwar restorers stripped those additions to return the twin-towered stone church to its medieval form, now protected as a historical monument.
- Where is Archikolegiata pw. Najświętszej Maryi Panny Królowej i św. Aleksego?
- Archikolegiata pw. Najświętszej Maryi Panny Królowej i św. Aleksego is in Tum, Łódź (Poland).