Na Skałce

I attended service today at St. Stanisław’s, also known as Na Skałce, “On the Rock,” one of the more notorious sites in Polish ecclesiastico-political history. Here, or somewhere in the vicinity of this church, it is thought that Stanisław of Szczepanów, then Bishop of Kraków, was killed at the behest of the king, Bolesław II, also known as Śmiały, “the Bold”—though you might call him “the Impetuous,” given the outcome. The story, of course, because it took place in 1079, is sketchy and our sympathies can vary. Davies likens Stanisław to Thomas à Becket, the English Archbishop of Canterbury (Richard Burton in the movie), who was killed by his erstwhile friend and patron, Henry II (Peter O’Toole in the movie) for asserting the rights and privileges of the Church against the power and privileges of the throne. (Because the Bishop of Kraków’s assassination preceded the Archbishop of Canterbury’s by a century, Becket should probably be considered the English Stanisław, but Szczepanów is not as crisp a movie title. Good flick, though.) At any rate, Stanisław had “repeatedly denounced the oppressions of King Bolesław II and…fomented a baronial rebellion against him.” (Davies, I, 70) So, it seems, Bolesław was not without a case, but in those days, rulers didn’t entertain a lot of options or exercise a great deal of restraint. Stanisław was promptly killed and allegedly quartered, a gruesome and rather supremely counterproductive act of political theater, a finger of the bishop finding its way into the parish font whose waters thereby acquired miraculous healing powers. Outrage turned public opinion against Śmiały, and he was driven from Wawel Castle, never to return, even as a corpse. He’s one of the few early Polish kings not encrypted there. Stanisław, on the other hand, became a saint, the patron saint of Poland; his bones were collected and deposited in a silver coffin which constitutes the feature reliquary of the royal cathedral on Wawel Hill. From the Rock to the Hill, and ecclesiastico-political immortality.

 

The church itself, “On the Rock” is not, of course, the physical building that Stanisław presided within as Bishop of Kraków. Large and handsome now, what I attended is an 18^th-century Baroque superstructure, marble and lavish gilt trim, built on or over the original, probably three or four times over in succeeding styles. Stanisław was not Baroque, more primitively probably just Roque, such that the space he occupied, celebrated mass in, was more likely where or near the Crypt is today. (The Rock itself as Church.) And the Crypt, in and on the Rock, is famous as the final resting place for some of Poland’s greatest cultural heroes: Jan Długosz, the medieval historian/chronicler (whose work I have yet to find in translation); Stanisław Wyspiański , the modernist literary lion who died young, at 38; and now Czesław Miłosz, the poet, essayist, and Nobel Laureate. I’ve been reading much Miłosz lately, one of the most accomplished minds of the 20^th century and active even into the 21^st. What particularly fascinates me about Miłosz is how a man, essentially of secular mind, who had experienced in first-hand ways the most trying events of the 20^th century, a man who appears to have read everything important in the most sympathetic and critical of spirits, whose mind, or one comparable, I would love to have—if I weren’t so lazy and didn’t have to suffer much to get it—how this man managed to remain a believer.

He wrote once that “Polish Catholicism, despite its having profoundly penetrated the Polish mind…has remained above all an attachment to the liturgy” (Native Realm, 83). Something about the habit of going to church and hearing its word sustained a Pole in belief, a habit which I’m returning to in “hope”—might be too strong a word—that it might reveal something about religion and Polishness. But Miłosz himself was not a believer out of habit and ritual, though he could appreciate its trappings:

I am fond of sumptuous garments and disguises

Even if there is no truth in the painted Jesus.

 

Sometimes believing, sometimes not believing,

With others like myself I unite in worship.

                                      (“Consciousness,” 432)

 Like all of us, he looked for “visible signs,” bid them, small, secret, personal miracles:

                                    Many a time I asked, you know it well, that the statue in church
                                    Lift its hand, only once, just once, for me.
                                                                            (“Veni Creator, 223)

They did not come, of course, and in their absence, he seems to approve of “Helene’s Religion,” who recites “the Our Father, the Credo and Hail Mary/against [her] abominable unbelief.” Because Helene’s inspiration appears to be not the Word or words—of which this poet is wisely skeptical—and not mere instinct, but a silent, intuitive, mystical logic in response to physical life and human experience. 

But in this world there is too much ugliness and horror.

So there must be, somewhere, goodness and truth.

And that means somewhere God must be.
                                                                 (652)