Christmas Eve celebrations have already started in the Wieliczka salt mine, near Krakow, where carols sung by the miners and their families echoed from the St. Kinga chapel, 200 meters below ground level.
The special Christmas mass began at 7 am this morning.
This underground sanctuary and its salt sculptures had been created in the 18th century.
The first midnight mass was said on Christmas Eve 1865.
The tradition had been interrupted after World War Two when the communist authorities banned the celebrations giving safety precautions as a reaso and were resumed in the late 1980s. (ss)