Lumen 2018

295 Foundation of a New Religious Order tury, many votive offerings were sent in gratitude for graces obtained after prayers had been offered before this icon. It is also in this church that the relics of St. Valerian, a martyr, associated with the person of St. Cecilia, are kept. They were brought here by Bishop Wierzbow- ski, and St. Valerian became “the patron of the land of Czersk against pestilence.” Nearby the parish church, on the side of the hill by the Vistula River, a Baroque chapel was built in which a miraculous statue of St. Anthony of Padua stands. The statue dates back to the end of the 17 th century, the chapel was probably built in the second half of the 18 th century at the site of the original chapel from the end of the 17 th century. In order to reach the chapel, one has to walk down 70 steps built at the beginning of the 20 th century and rebuilt in 1985. The terraces on the side of the hill were built in 1965. Next to the chapel, there is a spring. 163 In 1675, the Piarist Fathers received a wooden church and a monastery in the village of Lubkow. The church bore the title of the Nativity of Our Lord and was also called Bethlehem. According to an inventory from 1745, a stone chapel already stood there and an icon of the Blessed Mother with Infant Jesus Graeci ritus (a gift from Bishop Wierzbowski) hung in the church from the very beginning. In 1944, the icon was included in the list of historical relics at the parish church. Until 1808, the Piarist Fathers ran a college for the children of the nobility there, built by the Szymanowski family. One of its students was a Fr. Casimir Wyszynski. In 1819, the monastery buildings were turned into barracks for the Russian soldiers, only to become a shelter for the elderly in 1840. In 1860, the buildings were expanded according to a design prepared by Henry Marconi. What remained of the old Piarist building can still be seen in the vaults of two pavilions. Today a State House of Social Assistance, called “Za- klad” [institution], and a Neo-Gothic Chapel of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (built in 1862) are located there. 164 In 1671, the Dominicans (“Bertrandists”) received a church and a monastery located in the southern part of the city, at Mount Zion. The bishop charged this congregation with the duty of assisting the