Icon Museum

What to expect

Note: call before you visit. The museum’s former website (museumikon.pl) is offline, and the parent institution does not publish current opening hours for the Lelechowska branch. Visitors report that the museum - run by volunteers - does not keep regular hours, and that the most reliable time to visit is Sunday after the liturgy. We have not confirmed this with the museum itself, so the only dependable route is the phone: +48 785 859 585.

A former district boiler room in Stara Ochota, built on the foundations of tenement houses destroyed in 1944. The designers preserved industrial elements - beams, load-bearing columns with visible formwork marks - and added deep blue tones against the original red brick, creating a sacred atmosphere inside a post-industrial shell. Opened in 2011, the third icon museum in Poland (after Sanok and Suprasl).

A branch of the Museum of the Warsaw Orthodox Metropolis. Approximately 500 exhibits on permanent display: icons from Russia, Greece and the Balkans, spanning the 17th to 20th centuries. Classical representations of Christ, the Virgin Mary, saints. Holiday and narrative icons. Liturgical vestments, early printed books, archaeological and numismatic artefacts, Caucasian-style jewellery. And a curiosity: icons painted on Black Sea pebbles.

The space divides into two parts. An Orthodox chapel dedicated to St. Martyr Archimandrite Gregory (Peradze) - with iconostasis and liturgical furnishings - and exhibition halls with theological and artistic commentary for each piece. You will also find reproductions of Jerzy Nowosielski’s frescoes, stained glass designs by Adam Stalony-Dobrzanski, a monk’s cell, a Georgian house, an iconographer’s workshop, and a memorial chapel commemorating the era of church demolition.

The chapel’s patron - Father Gregory Peradze - was a Georgian archimandrite and professor at the University of Warsaw (1933-1942). He perished at Auschwitz on 6 December 1942, having voluntarily taken blame to save fellow prisoners. Canonised in 1995.

Tips

• Always call before you go: +48 785 859 585. The visiting system is informal and the museum is run by volunteers.
• Previously posted hours were Tuesday-Saturday 12:00-17:00 and Sunday 13:00-15:00, but they are not reliably kept - do not treat them as a guarantee.
• Free admission.
• The main exhibition room upstairs requires climbing 16 steps - no lift.
• A church cultural institution of the Polish Autocephalous Orthodox Church, not a public museum.
• The chapel also serves Georgian-speaking believers in Warsaw.

Getting there

Tram: Banacha stop - lines 7, 9, 15, 25. Then 5 minutes walk along ul. Lelechowska.

Bus: Banacha stop - lines 167, 175, 517.

Metro: Pole Mokotowskie (M1) - 15 minutes walk through the park.

The area is quiet, residential Stara Ochota - the museum has no cultural neighbours within 500 metres.

Nearby museums

Closest related institution: Museum of the Warsaw Orthodox Metropolis (ul. sw. Cyryla i Metodego 4, Praga-Północ - parent museum, Orthodox sacred art, free admission).