In a village in central Poland stands a church whose scale is startling: the basilica of Our Lady of Lichen, built between the mid-1990s and the early 2000s to designs by the architect Barbara Bielecka, and counted among the largest places of worship in Europe. It was raised for a purpose that long preceded it, the veneration of a small image of the Virgin that had drawn pilgrims to Lichen for generations and could no longer be housed by the older sanctuary. The building answers that devotion with deliberate monumentality: a vast dome, a free-standing bell tower, sweeping colonnades, a golden interior lit by a great expanse of stained glass, and an organ of exceptional size. The complex sits within landscaped grounds designed for processions and open-air liturgies, capable of receiving crowds numbered in the hundreds of thousands. For programmers, it offers an unusual subject, contemporary sacred architecture on a monumental scale, and a rare chance to film mass devotion in present-day Europe.
