Poland’s – and possibly the world’s – first “nanochapel” has opened in the city of Poznań. Using a special app, parishioners can access the space 24 hours a day to pray, meet with others, have a coffee, and even talk with a ChatGPT-powered AI assistant about their faith.
“In our parish, we are looking for solutions on how the church can adapt to parishioners and not the other way around,” Radek Rakowski, priest of the Roman Catholic parish of Łacina, told local news service wPoznaniu.
The nanochapel, Rakowski’s brainchild, was born out of a desire to make space available to parishioners outside of Mass or service hours. Initially, the priest provided worshippers with keys to the chapel but soon came to the conclusion that “something more was needed”.
As he told newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, he was inspired by the cashierless shops launched by Żabka, Poland’s largest convenience store chain. In a “Żabka Nano we can shop around the clock…[and] we thought of doing something similar in our parish”, said Rakowski.
The chapel door can be opened by anyone with an app created by Fibaro, a smart home systems company that helped Rakowski with the project. Using it requires the user to provide their name, phone number and email address. The app is used by around 100 parishioners.
“It works the same as carsharing, for example, where you register in the system and can…just click and get into the car. With us, we click and we’re in the chapel. Only with us you don’t pay anything,” explains the priest, who says the nanochapel is the first of its kind in Poland and possibly in the world
In response to concerns about whether older parishioners would struggle with the system, Rakowski says that actually “seniors are often the first to use these new technologies” and that “our ladies in their 80s use the system normally”.
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As well as using the space for prayer, contemplation or to meet others, visitors to the chapel can also interact with an AI assistant powered by ChatGPT and trained over the last year with the involvement of Rakowski.
Believers can ask the AI to read passages from the Bible and recite prayers but also to answer more complex questions relating to theology or morality.
To test the system, Gazeta Wyborcza asked it whether a Catholic should vote for Donald Tusk or Jarosław Kaczyński, the leaders of Poland’s two main political parties.
“As a chapel assistant of the Catholic church, I cannot give political advice or suggest who they should vote for,” it answered. “The church encourages the faithful to actively participate in social and political life, but the choice of a specific candidate should be based on one’s own conscience or Christian values.”
The Catholic church in Poland has accused the state authorities of “violating the law” by seeking to expand abortion rights, improperly treating prisoners, “spreading hate”, and “marginalising the importance of religion” https://t.co/lsxa5bHmN8
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) September 12, 2024
Rakowski told the newspaper that he believes the assistant “often speaks more beautifully than some priests”. As an example, he said that, when asked about the church’s attitude towards LGBT+ people, it “gives an answer that is not brutal or rejecting, but calming and constructive”.
When Gazeta Wyborcza asked the assistant about this issue, it answered that “the church teaches that every person is created in the image and likeness of God, and deserves respect, dignity and love…However, homosexual acts are contrary to the teaching of the church”.
The assistant has also been taught to to reject certain questions – such as requests to hear confession – and instead direct the person to a priest.
Poland's Catholic church has adopted an official stance on LGBT, including a call to create "clinics to help people regain natural sexual orientation".
Such "conversion therapy" is deemed harmful by medical bodies, and is banned in some countries https://t.co/RurmVIZCfb
— Notes from Poland 🇵🇱 (@notesfrompoland) August 30, 2020
Father Rakowski hopes that the chapel, which is equipped with free wifi, will become not only a place of prayer but also a meeting place for the local community living in the Łacina district of Poznań, which is made up of modern housing estates.
“Now young people from the neighbourhood will be able to meet and create projects together. It could even be a coworking space for people who work remotely but want to take a break,” he said.
The chapel also provides toys for children to play with while their parents can take a break and meet one another.
Main image credit: Parafia Łacina / Facebook
Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.
