Two Orthodox Churches (the Old and the New) of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul in Kalisz

Abstract

The Kalisz Orthodox church from the 1870s (Fig. 1) was demolished in the interwar period and quickly replaced by a “new” Orthodox church by the same name (Fig. 6). The surviving official correspondence reveals a specific set of arguments for the dismantling of the “old” church, e.g. that it was becoming dilapidated, was a threat to public safety and constituted an alien addition to the architectural landscape of the city. The demolition of the Orthodox church was to provide jobs for the unemployed and to open up the possibility of erecting a post office in that spot. The municipal authorities convinced the Ministry of Culture and Art that the local Orthodox parish was not interested in reclaiming the church for their own needs, even though this was not the case. The community ultimately conceded to having the church dismantled but demanded that a new temple be erected as compensation. The example of Kalisz aptly illustrates the attitude the authorities of the Second Republic of Poland had towards Russian Orthodox churches that had been erected in the partition period. The situation mirrored the controversies around the fate of the Orthodox church in Saski Square in Warsaw, if in a more provincial environment. The architectural style of the “new” Orthodox church in Kalisz puzzles many authors – the building, clearly representative of Russian historicism, is associated with Rundbogenstil and Latin- and Occidental-style Orthodox churches, which were spared by the interwar Polish authorities who wished to convert Orthodox citizens to Catholicism within the framework of the so-called neo-Union.