St. John's Cathedral (Polish: Katedra św. Jana), located in Warsaw's Old Town, is one of 3 cathedrals in the Polish capital. St. John's stands immediately adjacent to Warsaw's Jesuit church, and is one of the oldest churches in the city and the main church of the Warsaw archdiocese. St. John's Cathedral is one of Poland's national pantheons. Along with the city, the church has been listed by UNESCO as of cultural significance.
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 profuse Early Baroque decoration inside from the beginning of the 17th century and magnificent painting on the main altar by Palma il Giovane depicting Virgin and Child with St. John the Baptist and St. Stanisław were destroyed in German bombing of the church on August 17, 1944. The remains of the church were blown up by the Germans in November 1944. Only one wall that somehow managed to survive was all that was left of the six hundred year old edifice. This devastation of a Polish national monument was a part of the Planned destruction of Warsaw, which had officially begun after the collapse of the Warsaw Uprising.
The painting of the Virgin and Child.. was created in 1618 for King Sigismund III Vasa especially to place on the central altar of the St. John's Cathedral. As a masterpiece it was confiscated on Napoleon's order and transported to Paris. Retrieved by Warsaw authorities in 1820s after the Congress of Vienna. It survived many wars and the bombing of Warsaw since it was created, but did not survive the last one during the WWII. Among the sculptures lost due to German bombardment the most worh mentioning was a marble bust of Jan Franciszek Bieliński, voivode of Malbork (died 1685), carved by Jean-Joseph Vinache.
in St. John's Cathedral in 1670.]]
The interior reconstruction design considerably differed from the pre-war Cathedral, taking it back in time to its raw Gothic look, because very little of the cathedral's original furnishings has been preserved. The Cathedral is a three-nave building, two aisles are the same height as the main nave. On the right side from the front a belfry is situated, a passage to Dziekania Street is situated underneath it. There is a pulpit from 1959, designed by Józef Trenarowski and stalls which are a replica of the destroyed baroque ones, founded by the king John III Sobieski. Moreover, there are many chapels, gravestones and epitaphs in the Cathedral. All left aisle is filled with numerous chapels. They are, in turn, from main alter: Baryczka Chapel, it ends the left aisle (it contains a wooden crucifix, regarded as the most precious element of the cathedral’s furnishings; it was brought from Nuremberg in 1539 by the merchant Jerzy Baryczka), The Chapel of Whipped Christ (the oldest chapel, it dates back to 15th century), The Baptistery (with a valuable baptismal, which dates back to 1631), The Chapel of John the Baptist and Saint Stanisław Chapel, from 15th century.
]] The crypts beneath the main aisle hold the remains of notable persons, including:
![Warsaw, St. John's Cathedral [05.12.2015]](https://img1.advisor.travel/f550x450px-St_John_s_Cathedral_Warsaw_11.jpg)
