Kosciól na Skalce (Church on the Rock)

Kosciól na Skalce (Church on the Rock) Review

Standing on the Vistula embankment to the south of Wawel Hill, this church is the center of the cult of Saint Stanislaw. The bishop and martyr was beheaded and dismembered by order of the king in the church that stood on this spot in 1079—a tale of rivalry similar to that of Henry II and Thomas à Becket. The story goes that the saint's body was miraculously reassembled, as a symbol of the restoration of Poland's unity after its years of fragmentation. Beginning in the 19th century, the church also became the last resting place for well-known Polish writers and artists; among those buried here are the composer Karol Szymanowsk, and the painter and playwright Stanislaw Wyspianski, and poet Czeslaw Milosz.