Sacred Spaces Tour – St. Stanislaus B&M Roman Catholic Church

St. Stanislaus docents will speak about the early immigration of the Poles to Buffalo and the arrival of the young seminarian, John Pitass from Poland: his immediate ordination at Niagara University and his first Mass at St. Stanislaus Church on June 3, 1873, the founding date.

The building of the first church was a framed structure located on Peckham, which included two classrooms, a meeting hall, and a rectory, and opened on January 25, 1874. This church soon outgrew the population and a new limestone structure was constructed with twin towers (at a cost of $100,000) with a lower level church (opened in the Fall 1883) and an upper church (dedicated on October 17, 1886). 

Treasures inside the church will be pointed out including: the 14 foot high Carrara Marble main altar, costing $12,000, the Franz Mayer stained glass windows imported from Austria, the numerous murals in the church (by Jozef Slawinski) including when Poland accepted Christianity (966 with Mieszko I being baptized) and the first Polish settlement in 1854 in Panna Maria, Texas. All other murals, statues, altars will be pointed out, and in the vestibule, the archives will be available for viewing.