The town of Zebrzydów was established in 1617 in order to house the growing number of pilgrims visiting the Roman Catholic site of worship.

The town returned to Poland in 1919 with the end of World War I and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles by Roman Dmowski on behalf of the Polish Republic on 28 June 1919 in Paris.

After World War II, the town's economic development largely relied on the expansion of its furniture manufacturing and woodcraft industry, shoemaking, as well as a growing number of pilgrims to its religious complex.

It was at the monastery of Kalwaria Zebrzydowska that Pope John Paul II repeated the words of his motto: "Totus tuus ego sum, et omnia mea tua sunt.

According to his Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae he borrowed the motto from the Marian consecrating prayer found in the book True Devotion to Mary by Saint Louis de Montfort.

[2] Pope John Paul II once recalled how as a young seminarian he "read and reread many times and with great spiritual profit" some writings of Saint Louis de Montfort and that: In 1987, Henryk Górecki composed a choral piece (Totus Tuus Op.