Warsaw (Warszawa), Archdiocese of

VARSAVIA (WARSZAWA), ARCHDIOCESE of. - Archdiocese and capital city of Poland. It has an area of 12,400 sq. km., with a population of 1,990,000 inhabitants, of whom 1,652,000 are Catholics, distributed among 297 parishes, served by 481 diocesan and 199 regular priests; it has two seminaries, major and minor, 30 male and 124 female religious communities (Ann. Pont. 1953, p. 443).

The diocese was created by Pope Pio VI on 15 Dec. 1798, by dismemberment from the diocese of Poseni; its first bishop was Msgr. G. Boneza Miaskouski (d. 1804). The same Pontiff, following the Concordat with Emperor Alessandro I, raised the diocese to metropolitan rank by the bulls Militutuia Ecclesiae of 11 March 1817 and Ex imposita nobis of 30 June 1818. The first archbishop was Msgr. Fr. Skarbek Malczewski; Pope Pio VII subsequently conferred upon the Ordinary, by the brief Romani Pontifices of 6 Oct. 1818, the title of Primar regni Poloniae. The present archbishop, Card. St. Wyszyński, holds in «ad personam» union the archiepiscopal see of Gnesna.

NOTABLE CHURCHES: St. John the Baptist, of 1392-98, collegiate from 1402, cathedral from 1798, with 9 chapels of historical value and various monuments; Our Lady in Nuova Città, of 1409, church and cloister of the Bernardines of the 15th cent., rebuilt in 1533 and 1660, where the relics of Bl. Ładysław z Gielniowa, patron of Poland and Lithuania, are preserved (v. SANDOMIRIA); Holy Cross, of 1696, with various monuments and tombs of notable persons; St. Hyacinth, of 1604-38;

(phot. Felici)