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The paper examines the meaning and circumstances of King Ladislaus’s Jagiełlo’s donation of a heavily decorated reliquary cross to the collegiate church in Sandomierz. The cross, originally commissioned for the parish church of Brodnica, belongs to a small group of surviving objects that can be legitimately identified as booty taken during the war with the Teutonic Order in 1410–1411. It seems likely that the king personally gifted the cross to the collegiate church on his visit in Sandomierz at the beginning of 1411. Treating the relics of the True Cross as a particularly valuable booty and a token of victory has precedents in medieval Europe. Above all, however, it seems to be a reference to the story about Constantine’s victory over Emperor Maxentius, preceded by a vision of a cross that was to have appeared in the sky. Another widely-known narrative was an account about Emperor Heraclius who, having recovered the relics of the Cross stolen from Jerusalem by the Persians, had to carry them back to the town on foot. Additionally, the donation of the reliquary is compatible with Jagiełło’s special veneration of the Cross, attested, for instance, by his numerous pilgrimages to the shrine of the Holy Cross on Mount Łysiec. The king donated the relics to the church considered to be the second most important in the diocese, emulating, in a way, King Casimir the Great who presented a reliquary cross, stolen from the treasury of the Princes of Halych, to Cracow Cathedral. It was probably not long afterwards that Jagiełło had the chancel of the collegiate church decorated with Byzantine-Ruthenian wall paintings, thus emphasising the importance of this church in his programme of artistic foundations. Thus, Jagiełło’s donation of the cross of Brodnica encapsulates the most important aspects of his foundations: his veneration of the Cross, his self-representation as a worthy Christian monarch who emulated Constantine, and as a successor to Casimir the Great, who continued his actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The parish of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross in Spycimierz is the oldest parish in Uniejów municipality. Historical records about its functioning date back to the beginning of the 12th century. Despite many changes in its functioning, as well as the construction of new churches in the parish, many extremely valuable, historic sacred objects have been preserved inside the present temple. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper introduces the splendid representations of Emperor Constantine the Great and Saint Helena in Jan Kuben’s frescos in the church under invocation of the Triumph of the Cross in Brzeg. They testify strongly of the incessant presence of the creative reflection over the Christian ancient times in the area of Opole Silesia in the period of the Catholic reform in the 18th century. Kuben’s trompe-l’oeil constitutes a wonderful combination of deeply experienced Catholic spirituality with the genius of the artist – a visionary.

The law in the Kingdom of Poland regulated the use of alternative forms of signature. The files of the courts of peace in Zgierz and Łódź abound in examples of their use. In guardianship documents, we most often find three crosses in lieu of a signature (in applications) or a mention of the illiteracy of the participants in the proceedings (minutes of meetings and resolutions). In the simple police department's cases, Christians signed with crosses, while Jews drew three circles or signed in Hebrew. In each case, the official (a person witnessing the 'signature') attested that the signs were made by a specific person. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In his Ecclesiastical history, Socrates depicts Helena as a pious, strong and independent woman, the mother of the emperor, realizing her own ideas and acting as a tool in the hands of God – the ultimate inspiration of her actions. The emperor, her son, only supported her in her undertakings. According to Socrates, Helena travelled to Jerusalem to answer God’s call; there, she organized the search for the Sepulchre and the Holy Cross and found them. She was supported by Macarius, the bishop of Jerusalem, who, after God’s intervention, distinguished the True Cross from the crosses of the two villains. The empress divided the relics and sent some of them to her son to Constantinople; moreover, in the Holy Land, she built three basilicas connected with the life of Christ. Finally, Socrates mentions her piety and discusses the place of her burial. Conversely, in Sozomen’s account of the recovery of Christ’s Sepulchre and the relics, the main role is played by emperor Constantine, who wished to repay God for his blessings; he ordered the search and the construction of the basilica on Mount Golgotha. His mother only supported him in his plans, led by her devoutness, to which Sozomen pays more attention than his predecessor – he emphasizes Helena’s sensitivity to human poverty and suffering. The emperor was also involved in her generous deeds and gave her access to the imperial treasury. Thus, as indicated by Sozomen, Helena’s piety brought prosperity both to her family and to the whole Roman Empire.

The subject of the article is an unknown account of late Medieval Passion with the incipit "Pozdrowion bądź, Krzyżu Święty" ("Be regarded, holly Cross") found by the author of the paper. The handwritten relic is preserved in incunabulum (signature 000298), it contains Jacobus de Voraigne's Legendae de sanctis (Golden Legend), and belongs to the Diocesan Library in Sandomierz. The hymn is a closing part of a passion sermon and functions as a marginal note on 76 recto page next to a Latin text De passione Domini. It was composed at the end of the 15th c. or at the beginning of the 16th c. The recovered piece belongs to song and prose offspring of Venantius Fortunatus entitled Vexilla regis prodeunt, and more specifically one of its stanza „O crux, ave, spes unica...” It offers a presentation of Jesus Passion typical of dolorism and the issues of compassio, also representative of it. The article discusses the kinship of this hymn with other pieces of this kind, sketches the religious-cultural background on which the piece was composed and reviews all other Polish texts which regard the Cross. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Architectus is the property of Oficyna Wydawnicza Politechniki Wroclawskiej and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article discusses the establishment of the Benedictine Church in the Slavonic rite (the Church of the Holy Cross).

The purpose of this legal opinion is to examine the proposal submitted to the Speaker of the Sejm on 9 November 2011 by a group of Deputies requesting " issuance of an order requiring the removal of a Latin cross located in the chamber of the Sejm" . The author claims that the request of a group of Deputies is not legitimate and based on a false and tendentious interpretation of the law. In his view, nobody has the right to demand that the Catholic majority live according to these principles, which he/she does not believe to be right, as this would mean a gross violation of that majority's right to self-determination in their own country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]