M.A. Karolina Mętrak

Spór o krzyż w panoramie miasta czyli miejsce budownictwa sakralnego w relacjach między Państwem a Kościołem (1945-1989)

The dispute over the cross in the city panorama, i.e. the place of sacred architecture in relations between the State and the Church (1945-1989)

In my research I deal with the issue of construction in Poland after 1945 in the context of relations between the People’s Republic of Poland and the Church. I am researching the circumstances of construction and reconstruction of sacral buildings and the history of institutions involved in their construction, mainly the Primate’s Council for the Rebuilding of Warsaw Churches. I am particularly interested in the issue of ecclesiastical building in Warsaw, to which I devoted my Master’s thesis (defended in 2018).

Since 2017, I have been working at the Archives of the Archdiocese of Warsaw, where I am mainly involved in finding and compiling collections relating to the reconstruction of Warsaw – in 2018 I compiled the collection of the Primate’s Council for the Reconstruction of the Churches of Warsaw, and in 2020 I was a member of the AAW team implementing a grant awarded by the Supreme Directorate of State Archives to compile and secure a collection of architectural plans among which the largest part were the plans for the reconstruction of St John’s Cathedral.