Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

The church was built between 1300 and 1333 of red brick in the Wendish style as a three-nave basilica. Light enters the interior of the main nave through pointed-arch windows adorned with tracery, located above the side aisles, as well as through the lower side aisles’ windows, which feature stained-glass panels with floral motifs. Both the aisles and the chancel are supported by buttresses. The side aisles are covered by multiple gable roofs with gables decorated with blind windows. A hexagonal turret housing the staircase has been added to the side facade. Just below the eaves of the gable roof of the nave and the chancel, there is a decorative frieze made of profiled bricks in the shape of a four-leaf clover. A small, four-sided bell turret is situated on the ridge of the nave. A massive, 56-meter-high, four-story tower was added on the west side; it is covered with a hipped roof topped with a hexagonal gallery, above which rises a lantern with an onion dome. Just below the roof are clock faces dating from 1754. The tower’s façade features numerous blind windows with pointed arches, some of which have narrow window openings. On the lower level, there are two ogival, stepped entrance portals—on the north and south sides—from which staircases lead down to the level of Bolesław Chrobry Street. The church is oriented east-west and features an elongated chancel closed on three sides. The naves, chancel, and narthex are adorned with a star-vaulted ceiling featuring ribs made of brick shaped into trefoils. The side walls of the main nave are supported by two rows of six massive octagonal pillars each, built of red brick and symbolizing the 12 apostles. A modern curiosity is the underground sacristy, covering an area of 100 m², built according to a design by Dariusz Herman and Piotr Śmierzewski. This costly solution to the problem of cramped space in the former room did not compromise the appearance of the historic architecture. A staircase leads down from the old sacristy beneath its foundation. It is illuminated by natural light through square skylights visible from the square on the south side of the presbytery. The church was restored to the Gothic style twice: first between 1842 and 1845, and then after the establishment of the Koszalin-Kołobrzeg Diocese in 1972, when it was elevated to the status of a cathedral. At that time, the plaster was chiseled away to reveal the brick ribs of the vault and the pillars, and the Neo-Gothic main altar was removed. Among the church’s most interesting historic furnishings are: • Gothic figures from the now-defunct main altar—a pentaptych carved by Andreas Wenzel from oak in 1512, richly gilded and polychromed. Flanking the central figure of the Virgin Mary with the Infant Jesus are St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist, as well as two bishops who played a significant role in the Christianization of Pomerania—St. Adalbert and St. Otto of Bamberg; in the side panels, 16 other figures are arranged in two rows, and on the antependium—five female saints of the Church; • The stained-glass windows in the presbytery, dating from 1914–1915, depict Martin Luther, Jesus with Mary and Martha, a dove symbolizing the Holy Spirit, Jesus with the young man from Emmaus, and the Protestant theologian Philip Melanchthon. It should be noted that from 1534 to 1945, this was a Protestant church;
• a Gothic crucifix in the rood arch, moved to the church after the destruction of the Marian chapel on Chełmska Hill. It is a typical example of Gothic symbolism—the wood is entwined with vines, a symbol of the Tree of Life, and the circular medallions feature images or attributes of the four evangelists;  • 19th-century paintings hung beneath the windows on the north side of the nave: “The Resurrection” by August Friedrich Hauptner, dating from around 1845; “St. Mark the Evangelist”—a Neo-Baroque depiction showing the saint with his attributes: a quill, a book, and a lion; • a Neo-Gothic organ with a Baroque sound, built in 1899 by the firm “Schlag und Söhne” of Świdnica. It has a total of 3,419 pipes controlled by three manuals, a pedalboard, and three independent stops. Since 1972, concerts have been held in the cathedral as part of the annual international organ music festival; • a late Romanesque baptismal font (the oldest movable artifact in the cathedral, currently serving as a holy water font in the narthex beneath the tower) carved in the 13th century from shell limestone by Gotland masters, in the shape of a sixteen-sided bowl decorated with arched arcades (the Gothic pointed arch had not yet developed), with trefoil tracery supported by small columns; • tombstones: a sandstone one bearing the coats of arms of Koszalin’s patricians (with faded inscriptions) and a Mannerist one, made of bronze, dedicated to Piotr Kameke (died 1613), the last starost of Koszalin during the Gryfit dynasty.