Lumen 2018

no floor, no windows there, but the authorities allowed the Piarists to take the altars from their church as well as other liturgical objects with a stipulation that “anything that cannot be moved without dis- turbing the whole of the walls, both in the church and in the build- ings on Dluga Street, is not to be touched” and that “the clock on the Piarist tower is considered to be an immovable object.” The new shrine of Our Lady of Grace was solemnly opened on March 19, 1836, but it was not possible to organize the traditional processions any longer or to re-activate the Confraternity of Our Lady of Grace, even though this traditional feast continued to be celebrated on the second Sunday of May. 233 After 1866, when the cassation of the Order of the Piarist Fathers took place in revenge for their participation in the January uprising (1863), the cult of Our Lady of Grace began to decline. It was re- vived only after World War I when the Jesuits took charge of the church and the icon. During the Warsaw uprising (1944), the mirac- ulous icon was hidden in the basement of the church and survived, even though the church was completely destroyed. The cult of the Patroness of Warsaw was solemnly approved by the Holy See in 1970 and, on October 7, 1973, Stephen Cardinal Wyszynski, Primate of Poland, crowned the icon again. Pope John II prayed twice before it: on June 2, 1979, and on June 16, 1983. 234 Nowadays Our Lady of Grace continues to be the Patroness of Warsaw, and her icon hang- ing in the main altar of the church continues to be deeply venerated by the faithful. “The icon of the Madonna, placed in a poor wooden chapel in the heart of old Warsaw over three centuries ago, survived fires, epidemics, wars, expropriations, ruins, all the time sharing the city’s fate and its ... life.” 235 The information that Fr. Stanislaus was the Moderator of the Confraternity of Our Lady of Grace can be found in one of Fr. Wyszynski’s writings from the year 1751. He writes that, due to Fr. Papczynski’s care and effort, the Piarist confraternity grew in num- ber. 236 Based on information that he drew from Fr. Wyszynski’s writ- ings, attorney Alegini wrote in the same year (1751) that Fr. S TANISLAUS P APCZYNSKI 136