Art News

Poles Hope Deadly Knights will Now Bring Some Good

KWIDZYN (AP).- The Teutonic Knights have long been reviled in Poland, where the Germanic warriors swept in during the Middle Ages and converted pagans to Christianity at the point of a sword. Many here see them as an early incarnation of a Germany that has attacked Poland over the centuries, most recently in World War II. But now one Polish town is putting all grudges aside and celebrating the memory of the Teutonic Knights in an attempt to highlight the rich history of this once-German municipality and stimulate tourism in a region still catching up with Western Europe economically. In an elaborate ceremony Saturday that drew hundreds of people, Roman Catholic priests consecrated the newly discovered remains of three of the order’s 14th- and 15th-century leaders — or “grand masters” — with a Mass in the city’s St. John the Evangelist Cathedral. The cathedral is part of a massive red-brick fortress that was once a base for