St John's Archcathedral in Warsaw: 700 Years on the Old Town

On Swietojanska Street, steps from the Old Town Market Square, rises the brick silhouette of St John's Archcathedral - a church whose history reads like a history of Poland itself.

From 1339 to the Constitution

The cathedral's official history gives 1339 as the first documented date, when the parish church hosted a papal court whose verdict ordered the Teutonic Knights to return seized lands to Poland. Raised to a collegiate church in 1398-1406, it witnessed royal coronations in 1705 and 1764 - and, above all, the swearing of the 3 May Constitution in 1791. It became a cathedral in 1798 and an archcathedral in 1817.

Destruction and rebirth

During the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 the cathedral was fought over metre by metre; after the uprising's fall, German demolition squads blew it up. Cardinal Wyszynski later wrote that 90 percent of its walls were destroyed. Rebuilt after the war to designs by Jan Zachwatowicz, it regained its Gothic form and roof line.

Inside

Look for the 17th-century grate made to the king's own design, stained glass telling the history of Poland, the 1987 Eule organ, and the sarcophagi of Primates Stefan Wyszynski and August Hlond.