The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist is the main temple of Warsaw. It is located in the heart of Warsaw`s Old Town on Sventoyanskaya Street. The length of this street is only 180 meters, but it connects the two main squares of the city. In the south is the Castle Square and the Royal Palace, and in the north is the Market Square.
Sometimes this temple is called the Church of St. Jan, and the official name is the Church of St. John the Baptist. It was built in 1390 in the style of stone Gothic, common in the northern cities of Europe. The cathedral was originally planned not only as a temple, but also as a place of coronation, as well as a necropolis of the Mazovian princes.
For several centuries since the 12th century, the Wawel Cathedral in Krakow has always remained the place of the coronation of Polish kings. However, after the transfer of the Polish capital from Krakow to Warsaw in 1596, there were several exceptions. In 1705, King Stanislaw Leszczynski was crowned in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist in Warsaw. In 1764, Stanislav August Poniatowski was also crowned here.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Church of St. John the Baptist in Warsaw became a Pantheon where prominent figures of the Polish state and Polish culture were buried. National flags and standards are hung all over the cathedral.
The Presidents of Poland Gabriel Narutovich, Ignacy Moscitsky and Stanislav Wojciechowski, writer Heinrich Sienkiewicz, artist Marcello Baciarelli, Archbishop of Warsaw Stefan Wyszynski and many others are buried in the Cathedral of John the Baptist. The ashes of King Stanislaw August Poniatowski were transferred here. The cenotaph of Josef Pilsudski is also located here.
Like all the buildings of the Old Town of Warsaw, the Church of St. John the Baptist was destroyed by German troops during the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, but in the 1950s it was restored.
