St Florian's Cathedral: The Neo-Gothic Landmark of Praga

A silhouette over the right bank

The characteristic outline of the cathedral towers over all of right-bank Warsaw and is visible from the left bank of the Vistula, the Praga-Polnoc district office writes. The church went up between 1888 and 1904 to a design by Jozef Pius Dziekonski, with Countess Augustyna Potocka among its founders. Built in the neo-Gothic style with two 75-metre towers and three naves, its raw red-brick elevations and layout nod to the Gothic of Mazovia; the vaults carry a Moorish polychromy by the Strzalecki brothers, painters from Wojciech Gerson's school. The church could hold about 8,000 faithful.

Destruction and rebuilding

Two days before leaving Praga, on 14 September 1944, the Germans blew up the church; ruins lay two storeys high, though two tall opposing walls with the patrons' statues - St Florian on the west, St Michael on the east - survived. After the war the cathedral was reconstructed: work on the fronton began in 1964 and the towers were rebuilt in 1968-1970.

Cathedral and basilica

Since 1992 St Florian's has been the cathedral of the Warsaw-Praga diocese. In March 1997 Pope John Paul II granted it the title of minor basilica, and in 1998, for the 350th anniversary of Praga's city rights, three mosaics were unveiled above the entrance - Christ in the centre, Praga's coat of arms on the right and that of the first Praga bishop, Kazimierz Romaniuk, on the left. On 5 May 2004 a relic of St Florian, patron of firefighters, was brought to the basilica from Krakow's Wawel. The building has been in the register of monuments since 1965 (number 458).