St. Mary’s Sanctuary

St. Mary’s Sanctuary

This famous Marian sanctuary has been attracting pilgrims not only from Prussia and Warmia, but also from far away regions of Poland since the Middle Ages.

Swieta Lipka – this is also historic monument of outstanding value listed as one of the most magnificent objects of late Baroque in Poland. The architectural complex consisting of a church, cloisters and a monastery has preserved rich and varied ornamentation in an almost unchanged state. The ornamentation consist of stone and wooden sculptures, wall and canvas paintings, goldsmiths’ and wood-carvers’ objects together with artistic blacksmith work and ironwork masterpieces in such abundance that can seldom be encountered anywhere. The picture is completed with the complex’s picturesque location at the bottom of valley surrounded by forests.

Swieta Lipka has recently become a holiday resort as well. The forests and lakes attract more and more tourists. The visitors to the complex have thought why such a magnificent church was not built in a big city in a small village and why it was not built on hill so that it could be noticed from far away but it was erected down in a valley among wooded hills resulting in a fact that one can get the first glance of it from a close distance of less than half a kilometer. It is even more surprising when people hear that it was built at totally deserted place with its foundations set partly on bogs and that the village developed at it much later. The choice of such an untypical place for a church can be explained only by its unusual history.