What to See in Wągrowiec - Top Sights and Attractions

St. James the Apostle Church in Wągrowiec is a Roman Catholic parish church in the city of Wągrowiec. It is located at Klasztorna street.

It is one of the most valuable monuments of church architecture in Wielkopolska, Late Gothic, built in the second half of the 16th century, using material from an older Romanesque church. The construction was led by Piotr from Szamotuły and Bartosz from Poznań. The western and eastern gables are late Renaissance. In the church walls there are numerous cavities of circular shape drilled in the bricks. They occur in almost all Gothic churches in Wielkopolska, Ziemia Lubuska, Pomerania, and Warmia. Their origin can be explained by folk medicine. In the past, consecrated bricks were ground for medicine for people and animals. Next to the cavities, the names and dates from the 16th and 17th centuries are engraved in the bricks. Among them are the names of teachers from the villages of Łęgowo and Tarnowo.

The interior has three naves and a hall. Star vaults in the central nave, the chancel and the chapel, cross vaults in the side naves. Renaissance frescos from the end of the 16th century in the chapel from 1588. The main Renaissance altar from about 1600. The Renaissance paintings from the main altar, sent to Warsaw for conservation, were burnt during the siege of the city in 1939. Now they have been restored on the basis of photographic images. A renaissance pulpit, renaissance and baroque side altars, a rainbow beam with a passion group from the end of the 16th century.

Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Wągrowiec - former Cistercian abbey church, now parish church of the parish of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary located in Wągrowiec, on Klasztorna Street.

A school operated at the church in the seventeenth century, its rector was in 1639. Adam Gradowicz, who had studied at the Lubrański Academy before, was its rector. After the fire of 1747, the church was built anew, completed in 1799. During the occupation it was turned into a warehouse, in 1945 set on fire by the Germans before fleeing, burned down completely. At the same time the adjacent monastery, built in the 18th century using Gothic walls, burned down. After the war, between 1946 and 1968, the church and monastery were rebuilt. In 1968, in the former monastery premises, the Jakub Wujek House of Merit of the Gniezno Archdiocese was established, which operated until June 1997. Currently, the north and west wings belong to the parish of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, while the east and south wings have been allocated for other purposes. On September 1, 2013, the Pauline Fathers took over the care of the church and parish