Church of St. Stanislaus-Catholic

About this property

The Basilica of Saint Stanislaus Kostka (Polish: Bazylika Świętego Stanisława Kostki) is a historic church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Winona in Winona, Minnesota, United States, and a prominent fixture on the city's skyline. Within the diocese it is known as Saint Stan's. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 as Church of St. Stanislaus–Catholic. It was designated as a Minor Basilica of the Roman Catholic Church on November 10, 2011 by Pope Benedict XVI. The congregation dates back to April 2, 1871, when leaders of Winona's Kashubian Polish community formally declared its intent to organize a parish under the patronage of St. Stanislaus Kostka. Prior to this they had been attending Mass at either the "Irish" (Saint Thomas) or the "German" (Saint Joseph) Catholic church, but they wished to worship in their own language and to be led by a Kashubian or Polish pastor. Accordingly, a small wooden sanctuary was constructed at the corner of Fourth and Carimona Streets in 1872. From its very beginning, the new Saint Stanislaus Kostka Parish served as the religious and the civic center for Winona's Kashubian Poles. The first permanent pastor was the Reverend Joseph Juskiewicz, who was succeeded in January 1875 by the Reverend Alexander Michnowski. In 1875, the Reverend Jan Romuald Byzewski (1842–1905), a Kashubian-born Franciscan forced to emigrate from German Poland due to the Kulturkampf, arrived and served as pastor until 1890. Winona grew rapidly during the 1880s and 1890s, and the continuation of the Kashubian diaspora played a major part of this population boom. By 1893, Saint Stanislaus Kostka Parish had completely outgrown its old sanctuary. Creation of a satellite Polish parish on Winona's West End was considered; indeed, such a parish, Saint Casimir, would be established in 1906. The congregation was bitterly divided on the question of whether to build a new church or expand the old. But as a matter of religious and civic pride, the parishioners of Saint Stanislaus Kostka decided to build a larger, grander 1800-seat structure on the site of their present church. The Basilica of Saint Stanislaus Kostka was designed during the winter of 1893–4 in the Polish Cathedral Style (it has also been attributed to the Romanesque style) by the Winona architectural firm of C.G. Maybury and Son, which had also designed Sacred Heart-Saint Wenceslaus Church in nearby Pine Creek, Wisconsin. The old church was demolished in the spring of 1894, under the direction of then-pastor Reverend Antoni Klawiter. While the new one was built, the parishioners worshiped in the nearby Bohemian parish of Saint John Nepomucene. The foundation stone was laid by the new pastor, Reverend Jakub W.J. Pacholski, on October 28, 1894. The Basilica was dedicated on Thanksgiving Day November 28, 1895, by the Most Reverend Joseph B. Cotter, Bishop of Winona. From the very beginning, the Basilica's great golden dome dominated the skyline of Winona, testifying to the piety and thrift of the Kashubian Polish community which built it at the then-exorbitant cost of $86,000.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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