Cathedral of St. John - Warsaw, Masovian

Cathedral of St. John - Warsaw - details and images

St. John's Cathedral (Polish: Katedra św. Jana) is a Catholic church in Warsaw's Old Town, one of the oldest churches in the city and the main church of the Warsaw archdiocese.

Originally built in the 14th century in Masovian Gothic style, the Cathedral served as a coronation and burial site for numerous Dukes of Masovia.

The Cathedral was connected with the Royal Castle by an elevated 80-meter-long corridor that had been built by Queen Anna Jagiellon in the late 16th century and extended in the 1620s after Michał Piekarski's failed 1620 attempt to assassinate King Sigismund III in front of the Cathedral.

After the resolution of the Constitution of May 3, 1791, at the end of the session at the Royal Castle, King Stanisław August Poniatowski went to the Cathedral of St. John to repeat the Oath of the Constitution in front of the Altar, in the face of God. Also the Marshals of the Great Sejm were carried to the Cathedral on the shoulders of the enthusiastic deputies of the Sejm.

The church was rebuilt several times, most notably in the 19th century, it was preserved until World War II as an example of English Gothic Revival.
Leveled by the Germans during the Warsaw Uprising (August–October 1944), it was rebuilt after the war. The exterior reconstruction is based on the 14th-century church's presumed appearance (according to an early-17th-century Hogenberg illustration and a 1627 Abraham Boot drawing), not on its prewar appearance.

The crypts beneath the main aisle hold the remains of notable persons, including Dukes of Masovia, Polish monarchs and presidents etc.

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