A city located on the Wierzyca River, 4 km from the A1 motorway. The name appeared on the pages of history in 1274, when the Pomorskie prince Mściwój II gave the lands on the Wierzyca River together with the village of Pelplin to the Cistercians who came here from Pogodki, and even earlier from Doberan in Mecklenburg.
From the history pages
In 1823, the Prussian authorities dissolved the order, a year later Pelplin became the capital of the Chelmno diocese with a theological seminary located in the former monastery and the bishop’s Collegium Marianum, founded in 1836. Pelplin received city rights in 1931, its main church was raised to the dignity of a minor basilica in 1965, and in 1992 the town itself became the capital of the new Pelplin diocese. 2 km from the city center there is John Paul II Hill, where he celebrated a holy mass during his pilgrimage to Poland. The first building built after the arrival of the Cistercians was a rectangular oratory (today the chapel of the Holy Cross).
Basilica of St. Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Panny
The construction of the three-nave basilica, part of the former Cistercian abbey, lasted from 1280 to 1320. The temple’s vaults are of extraordinary beauty – stellar, net and crystal. The church equipment consists of 23 altars. The most impressive thing is the high, six-story main altar, dating from 1623-1640, with Hermann Hahn’s paintings “The Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary” and “The Vision of St. Bernard”.
The most valuable Gothic monuments of the church include stalls from the mid-19th century. XVth century with rich floral and zoomorphic ornamentation and tracery. Noteworthy are the baroque pulpit from 1682 with a woodcarving by Maciej Scheller from Gniew and the baroque organ from 1677-1679, made by Jan Jerzy Wolff from Gdansk.
The remains of the monastery complex include: a cloister and cloisters with rich furnishings, a gatehouse in which the Diocesan Tourist Information Center is located, a mill and a granary (today a hotel) and other buildings used by the Major Seminary and the Catholic high school Collegium Marianum.
Opactwo Cysterskie w Pelplinie
Post-Cistercian abbey in Pelplin, photo: Pelplin Municipal Office
Diocesan Museum
It has been operating since 1928 and has an extensive collection of medieval sculptures, reliquaries, vestments and liturgical vessels, as well as the only copy of the Gutenberg Bible in Poland, printed in Mainz in the years 1452-1455.
The Diocesan Museum in Pelplin, photo: Pomorskie Travel
Bishop's Palace and Church of St. Corpus Christi
A classicist palace from 1837 and a Gothic church from 1417 (originally the Chapel Before the Gate), which in the second half In the XVIIth century it became a parish church and can be seen in the gardens of the former Cistercian complex.
The temple has a Rococo interior design, which includes: a main altar, a pulpit, a baptismal font and balconies. Left side altar. Saint Angels from 1680 is the work of Maciej Scholler from Gniew, the right side altar dedicated to Saint Families – with a painting of Christ the King from the XIXth century. On the left wall of the church – a painting from Bartłomiej Strobel’s school with the Coronation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Bishop's gardens
The park was created together with the Bishop’s Palace, built in 1837-38. Its basic layout has been preserved to this day – the main axis of the park interior ran as it does today, leading south along the pond between two historic avenues: hornbeam and linden-chestnut.
This main space, originally one-story – grassy and open, after World War II acquired new, ahistorical and not always happy trees and shrubs. Especially numerous red oaks mean that the interior of the park has lost its open space values – these trees will be replanted.
The main decorative element of the Gardens, now no longer existing, was a large circular flower bed right under the Palace – the so-called ground floor – visible in the photo from 1905.In the post-war period, mainly coniferous species with creeping or spherical forms were planted here, which did not harmonize with the historic character of the park. The ground floor will be recreated in accordance with the engraving showing an identical flower bed in W. Bielski’s pattern of garden flower beds from 1908.
The driveway to the Palace from the side of the baroque stairs leading to the stone bridge over the Wierzyca River has its original form restored.
