Description

When the Reformation came to Gdańsk in 1525, the Council ordered the Dominicans to leave the city. The 16th century was the most dramatic period for them. The church was destroyed and plundered several times during tumults. The Dominicans were leaving the city and returning. The last return in this century took place in 1578 by virtue of the peace treaty in Gdańsk with Stefan Batory. The Dominicans returned to the monastery and took over the pastoral care of the Catholic population in the city where Protestantism was spreading. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the monastery was the favourite place of the bishop of Wloclawek, Catholic church dignitaries and laymen to stay in Gdansk. Regular visits by successive Polish kings during their stays in Gdansk confirm the period of the monastery's splendour at that time. It lasted until the partitions of Poland and the Napoleonic Wars.