The Concathedral in Żywiec

In the south-west corner of the market square in Żywiec you can find a stone belfry built in 1723-1724. Behind it, there is the second oldest church in Zywiec, the late Gothic concathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The church was probably built in the first half of the fifteenth century - Jan Długosz mentions it in the Liber beneficiorum from 1460-1470. The first renovation took place in the years between 1515 and 1542. During the renovation, the nave was extended, and put - together with the presbytery - under a net vault. The second renovation was carried out 40 years later. Again, the nave was extended, and the construction of the tower under the direction of an Italian architect Giovanni Ricci began. At the turn of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, on its north side, the Chapel of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was erected. Because of the founders and the hidden under the floor crypts, it is called the Komorowscy's Chapel. In 1639, a Gethsemane chapel founded by Christopher Mrzygłodowicz, an urban writer, was built on its west side. In 1711, the church was renovated by the Wielopolscy family. Among other things, the interior gained a baroque look, and the elevated presbytery was covered with a barrel vault with lunettes. In 1929, at the south wall of the nave, the Habsburg family burial chapel, which is now also known as the Chapel of Our Lady of Czestochowa, was built.

Address:

Zamkowa 6

34-300 Żywiec