The First Miracle on Nowolipki, 1959
According to witnesses, an apparition of the so-called Compassionate and Merciful Our Lady of Muranow appeared in the evenings. Her luminous figure was said to have appeared against the gilded sphere at the base of the cross crowning the roof of the church.
The first apparition took place on Wednesday, October 7. The next day the Virgin Mary did not appear, but for the following 20 days the apparitions were said to repeat regularly. Tens of thousands of people gathered outside the church; accounts and studies mention around 35,000 believers. Militia officers also appeared at the site to direct traffic.
The parish priest informed the metropolitan curia about the event. The curia issued a statement saying that the alleged miracle was a natural phenomenon.
The authorities were alarmed by religious gatherings in the center of the capital, especially because they were taking on a political and anti-socialist character. Secret police officers noted that the faithful sang, among other songs, “My chcemy Boga” - “We want God” - including the words: “We want God in books, in schools…”
The Security Service also noticed that cars with diplomatic plates began arriving near the church. Reports mentioned vehicles from the US and Israeli embassies, showing that the matter was being watched beyond the official apparatus of the Polish People’s Republic.
In the famous photograph that circulated around the world, the solitary church can be seen with its tower rising from a sea of ruins of the former ghetto. The same historical layer of Muranow is connected with the Ringelblum Archive, hidden in the cellars of the school at the former 68 Nowolipki Street. As early as the 1950s, the legend of the church’s miraculous survival from the wartime destruction strengthened belief in its supernatural qualities.
The authorities decided to paint the cross finial, but the first attempt failed: the wrong paint was washed away by rain the next day. This only strengthened the belief that a higher power was watching over the church and blocking the actions of the security services.
Only the second painting produced the result expected by the authorities. The crowd was dispersed only after arrests: 766 people were detained in total, including 375 who had arrived from other regions of Poland. Many clergy were among those detained.
The echo of these events returned eleven years later, during the second miracle on Nowolipki.