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Nowa Huta district Krakow Poland & The Lord’s Ark Church

After the Second World War, Poland fell under the communist Soviet regime for a long time. In Krakow this resulted in a lot of resistance among the intellectuals and students in the city. To counterbalance this, the government had a completely new workers' city built on the edge of the city according to communist ideals. It became Nowa Huta, Polish for 'new steel factory', and later added to Krakow as a district. The largest steel factory in Poland was built there as the basis for this new residential area. In the neighbourhood the 'Vladimir Lenin' steel factory was erected, now operating under a different name. However, the new ideal communist district of Nowa Huta was not an unmitigated success for the regime. The factory had difficulty running production because raw materials and workers had to come from far away. In addition, the ideal living environment of the working class also turned out to be a hotbed for resistance against the government. The fact that the regime refused to build a church for the many religious workers did not help. Nowadays Nowa Huta is an ordinary residential area in the city, but for visitors it is an interesting sight for those interested in life behind the Iron Curtain. Not everything dates back to communist times, as the area's history goes well beyond the 1950s.

The Lord’s Ark Church (Kościół Arka Pana) was built on the outskirts of Nowa Huta, one of the only planned socialist realist districts in Poland, by volunteers from 1967 to 1977.
This peculiar-shaped temple has a convoluted past. The construction of Lord's Ark Church was agreed upon by the neighbors of Nowa Huta during the 1950s when Poland was under Communist control. However, the authorities refused to grant building permits for a Roman Catholic Church in the socialist realist neighborhood of Kraków, which led to violent protests by the residents of Nowa Huta. In 1957, a wooden cross was placed on the location they had chosen for the temple, but permission was still not granted. Despite the freezing weather, Bishop Karol Wojtyla started celebrating mass outside on the chosen site in 1960. Seven years later, permits were granted and volunteers worked on the church for ten years with subsidies from all over the world, until it was opened to the public in 1977. The temple is as surprising outside as it is inside. The exterior is covered by over 2 million stones and the interior is mostly made of wood, which will remind visitors of the hull of a boat. In the center of the church is a remarkable crucifix.