Lublin, Poland Lublin, once dubbed the Jewish Oxford, was the academic center of Ashkenazi Judaism for the better part of four centuries. From the mid 16th century to the mid-20th century, Jewish scholars from all over Eastern Europe came to study in Lublin at one of the continent’s only state-sanctioned Talmudic academies. The current building, completed in 1930 and … [Read more...]
MARIENBURG CASTLE
Malbork, Poland The Order of the Teutonic Knights was one of the three great knightly orders of the Middle Ages. In the wake of the collapse of the Crusades, the Teutonic Knights, like their brethren the Templars and Hospitallars, found themselves driven back into Europe. Composed mostly of soldiers from the German lands, they regrouped and reestablished themselves at … [Read more...]
JASNA GORA MONASTERY
Czestochowa, Poland The Jasna Gora Monastery in Czestochowa, Poland is the most popular Marian site located in Eastern Europe. For most of the last six centuries, Jasna Gora has been the most accessible major Catholic shrine in an area largely isolated from the rest of Catholic Europe by the Protestant churches in Germany and Bohemia and the Orthodox Church in Russia and … [Read more...]
