Church of St John the Evangelist in Pińczów

The church on Pińczów's market square is the burial place of Jan Łaski (John à Lasco) – Poland's greatest Reformation figure, who organised Protestant congregations in England and East Frisia. That is the paradox of this building: built for the Pauline Fathers, it served Calvinists for several decades and then went back to the monks. Behind its Mannerist façade lies an interior with Baroque altars and rare choir stalls showing the lives of hermit saints.

History: from Oleśnicki to the Reformation and back

The church was founded in 1430 by Zbigniew Oleśnicki, Bishop of Kraków, after Pińczów received town rights in 1428. In 1436 he handed it to the Pauline Fathers, and a three-aisled basilica was begun, completed before 1449. In 1550 the town's owner Mikołaj Oleśnicki, a fervent supporter of the Reformation, expelled the monks. Thanks to King Sigismund Augustus they returned, but only for 1551–1555; Pińczów became one of the centres of Polish Calvinism. Jan Łaski died here in January 1560 and was buried in what was then the Calvinist church.

The Paulines regained the church after 1586, when Bishop Piotr Myszkowski bought the Pińczów estate. The present church was begun in 1637, reusing the old tower, porch and some walls, and consecrated before 1656. After the monastery was dissolved in 1819, Norbertine nuns from Busko used it until 1864; today it is the parish church of St John the Apostle and Evangelist.

What to see

• Gothic west porch – the oldest part, with a ribbed cross vault and a keystone bearing the Oleśnicki family's Dębno coat of arms from the second quarter of the 15th century.
• Façade from about 1642 – an early Baroque two-tier gable with niches, obelisks and limestone sculptures from a local Pińczów workshop.
• High altar of 1746 by Paweł Walenty Wiązkowicz and ten side altars from the 1740s.
• Choir stalls from about 1665 with paintings of the lives of hermit saints – a nod to the order founded in honour of St Paul the Hermit.
• Organ case from 1757–1759 with an instrument by Wojciech Szyplewski, and a 17th-century marble font.
• Tomb of Anna Jakuczykowa (1618) in the porch, a domed chapel on the south side and a tall bell tower set at an angle on the façade axis.

Good to know

The coat of arms above the porch entrance belongs to Zygmunt Gonzaga Myszkowski – of the family that returned the church to the Paulines. The sacristy furnishings were made by Brother Antoni Rotter. The National Heritage Board considers the church one of the best examples in Lesser Poland of the builders' style of the Vasa era.

Tripto tip

This is a working church. According to the parish website (as of October 2026), Mass is held on Sundays at 7:00, 8:30, 10:00, 11:30 and 17:00, and on weekdays at 6:30 and 17:00 – just before or after is the easiest time to get in. The National Heritage Board says visits at other times must be arranged by phone with the parish priest (parish office: +48 41 357 78 10). Twenty to thirty minutes is enough. Pińczów lies on the Nida river, about 40 km south of Kielce; within a few hundred metres are the Regional Museum in the former monastery, the Old Synagogue of 1594–1609 and the Mannerist St Anne's Chapel on the hill above town.