Saint-Saëns Poland's Baroque masterpiece Johann Mosengel Organ Blessed Virgin Mary in Święta Lipka

Danse Macabre (Saint-Saëns) Organist - Rafał Sulima. Johann Mosengel Organ At Blessed Virgin Mary in Święta Lipka, Organ concerts take place every day at the Basilica of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Święta Lipka on the eighteenth-century organ, whose additional attraction are its moving figures, the Baroque organ, built in 1721, is adorned with figures of saints and angels animated by a special mechanism. The angel located on the organ centerpiece plays mandolin while the cherubs spin around along with the two large angels with trumpets. According to legend, the name Heiligelinde (Holy Linden tree) Święta Lipka - Holy Tillia (lime tree) - referred to a tree with a wooden statue of Mary under which miracles took place, though it may stem from a sacred grove of the Old Prussians. A chapel at the site was first mentioned in a 1491 deed issued by Johann von Tie-in then Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights. At this time Heiligelinde was already a Pilgrimage site, with an inn. It was destroyed about 1525 during the Protestant Reformation during which the region became Lutheran. Although the village lay in the protestant region of Masuria, the Roman Catholic faith was again approved in the East Prussia in 1605. The chapel was rebuilt by the Jesuits and consecrated in 1619 by the Warming Prince - Bishop Szymon Rudnicki and became a popular pilgrimage site among the Roman Catholic populace of the surrounding counties as well as the Lutheran Masurians. The nave of the present church was finished in 1693, the facade and the adjacent cloister added by 1730.