Church of the Apostles of Saints Peter and Paul. Photo: Jakub Halun / CCClarifications about the nature of the new National Pantheon were revealed yesterday following the sitting of the Commission of the Culture, Promotion and Protection of Monuments in Krakow.
A new pantheon is being prepared owing to lack of space either at Wawel Cathedral or the crypts of the so-called Church on the Rock.
However, although the forthcoming pantheon will also be created at an historic Cracovian house of worship, the Church of Saints Peter and Paul, the crypts will be freed from their sacral obligations, so as to allow for the internment of non-Catholics, including atheists, Jews or Muslims.
In effect, the crypts will be rented from the Curate, rather than directly controlled by it.
Nevertheless, benefactors of the project do include the Curia, alongside the senates of eleven Cracovian public colleges and the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences.
The concept, echoing the crypt of honour at Krakow’s Church on the Rock, is to pay tribute to outstanding figures in the arts and sciences. The last luminary to be interred at the Church on the Rock was poet and literary professor Czeslaw Milosz.
The inclusion of figures of various religious denominations is a notable development. Prior to the war, a large contingent of Poland’s most outstanding literary figures were assimilated Polish Jews, including Bruno Schulz, Janusz Korczak, Julian Tuwim, Boleslaw Lesmian, some of whom were also atheists.
Figures from such backgrounds have not as of yet made it into the Wawel crypts, or those of the Church on the Rock. Nevertheless, Lesmian was buried in a Catholic cemetery, in the Alley of the Merited. Likewise, Stanislaw Lem, a declared atheist of Jewish parentage, was interred at a Catholic cemetery in Krakow.
People from similar backgrounds at large today include film-makers such as Jerzy Hoffman, Agnieszka Holland and Roman Polanski, although it is perhaps unforeseeable that the latter will be a candidate, owing to his highly publicised brushes with the law.
Yesterday, the benefactors confirmed that the new pantheon is due to open on 27 September, 2012. The date is the 400th anniversary of the death of famed preacher, Piotr Skarga, who was himself interred in the church. (nh/jb)
Source: PAP