Sawt Falasteen - Polish village puts faith in Europe's tallest Virgin Mary statue

At 55 metres (180 feet) high, the concrete and steel figure is the tallest Marian statue in Europe, and second in the world behind the 98.15 metre Mother of All Asia effigy in the Philippines.

Set to officially open after a blessing ceremony on Assumption Day on August 15 -- the Catholic holiday devoted to the Virgin Mary -- the Konotopie statue is not yet finished, with concrete blocks and debris scattered across a muddy parking lot.

But Poland is a Catholic stronghold and people are already flocking to the unfinished site -- whether out of faith or sheer curiousity.

"There was scaffolding (and) you could not see anything, but there were coach buses coming," Andrzej, a security guard at the statue, said of the fervour in Konoptopie.

The Konotopie Virgin Mary cost an estimated 100 million zlotys ($26 million), according to local media. That is being paid by billionaire Roman Karkosik, a 75-year-old who is regularly listed as one of Poland's richest tycoons.

- Financing devotion -

Many devotees are not concerned by the cost.

"People come here ... in search of faith," visitor Marek Gizinski told AFP, calling it "something monumental".

"And just like with any miracle... you just can't forget about it, because it's simply impossible to forget," he added, gazing up at the Virgin.

But some residents say the giant statue is not the best way to represent the Catholic faith, in a country already peppered with religious monuments, including numerous memorials to Polish pope John Paul II.

Poland's most popular Marian devotion site is a painting known as the "Black Madonna", in Czestochowa, southern Poland, that attracts between 3.5 and five million pilgrims every year.

Rather than the Virgin Mary, the money "should be invested in a hospital or orphanage," one married couple from Sierpce, some 30 kilometres from the statue, told AFP.

Construction at Konotopie began in March 2025, reportedly as a religious gesture by Karkosik and his wife.

"Last Sunday he visited the construction site from the backseat of his Maybach", the security guard at the premises told AFP.

Karkosik, founder and principal shareholder of industrial group Boryszew, lives nearby in the small town of Kikol, in a restored 18th-century palace across from the parish church.

- New pilgrimage hotspot? -

Officials hope the project will boost economic development and bring financial benefits to the area.

"I have not heard any negative opinions ... everyone is rather satisfied," Renata Golebiewska, mayor of Kikol, told AFP.

She hopes the investment will "be a chance for (the area) to grow, and create new jobs."

In 2024, Kikol's municipal tax revenue per capita amounted to only 1,117 zlotys ($295), according to finance ministry data, making it one of the poorest municipalities in the region.

Along the outer wall of Kikol's parish church stands a bronze figurine bearing a striking resemblance to the flashier counterpart just one kilometre (0.6 miles) away.

A scale model by sculptor Adam Matejowski was installed on the site in 2024 as a preview of the giant monument.

The Catholic church is deeply entrenched in Poland's national identity and the Virgin Mary is considered the country's patron and protector, even as it undergoes one of the fastest rates of secularisation worldwide.

In Poland's 2021 census, 71 percent of the population identified as Roman Catholic, down from 88 percent 10 years earlier.

"We hope this place will bear the fruits of a deeper return to faith, or at least help people deepen their faith," said the parish priest Marek Mrowczynski.

Yet not everyone is convinced that monumental displays of faith can address what some see as a growing spiritual malaise.

"Right now, in 90 percent of cases, everyone's thinking about what they're going to get out of it, how much they'll get out of it, what they can claw out of it for themselves," said Wanda, who came from the city of Plock with two friends to see the statue.

H.Darwish--SF-PST