Cracow Cathedral on Wawel [antikvár]

This basilica has so many links with the history of the Polish nation, with the times of prosperity and the varying jortunes of the monarchy, that if no history of Poland had ever been written, the greater part of this could be learnt from its walls and monu-ments."These were the words with which the Suffragan Bishop Józef Olechowski greeted the last King of Poland, Stanislaw August Po-niatowski, in Cracow Cathedral in 1787. They express the marvellous truth hidden within the walls of this church, the sanctuary of the Polish nation. We all know well that this cathedral cannot be entered without emotion. More, it cannot be entered without an inner trembling, without awe, for here as in few cathedrals in the world is contained a vast greatness which speaks to us of all the history of Poland, of all our past; together the mon-uments, tombs, altars, sculptures, and above all the host of names of those long dead, remind us of what has gone by. All these names mark and acknowledge, each in itself and all together, the long path of our history of a thousand years; and so he who enters this Cathedral, even as a chance pilgrim, must linger before this grandeur. The whole of our great thousand-year-old tradition, Christian and Polish at the same time, emerges as liv-ing reality in Wawel Cathedral. Historical tradition these words seem to sound of the