St Stanislaus Kostka Catholic church, Coventry

Introduction

The photograph on this page of St Stanislaus Kostka Catholic church, Coventry by A J Paxton as part of the Geograph project.

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St Stanislaus Kostka Catholic church, Coventry

Image: © A J Paxton Taken: 11 Sep 2021

This is a Catholic church, situated at the junction of Harnall Lane West and Springfield Road, which serves the Polish community in Coventry. There is a Polish community centre behind the church building. The church is dedicated to St Stanislaus Kostka, a Polish nobleman, known for his youthful holiness, who died in 1568 while a novice with the Jesuits https://www.jesuits.global/saint-blessed/saint-stanislaus-kostka/ . Poles settled in Coventry during and after the second world war. The invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939 and the subsequent occupation of the country by Germany and the Soviet Union led to the formation of a Polish government in exile in London and to service personnel forming the Polish Free Forces, which fought alongside British forces, while some served in the Royal Air Force. Many chose to remain in Britain after 1945, rather than return to a Poland ruled by a communist government installed by the Soviet Union. In Coventry, Polish Catholics worshipped in local churches until this building was completed in 1961; see the Victoria County History of Warwickshire, vol. 8, pp368-371 https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol8/pp368-371 . The church is shown here decked with the blue ribbons of the 'Faith' event that forms part of the UK City of Culture 2021 programme https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-58027456 .

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0

Image Location

coordinates on a map icon
Latitude
52.416157
Longitude
-1.506675