St. John’s Archcathedral, Warsaw

St. John's Archcathedral, Warsaw tickets: which one to buy

The Archcathedral of Saint John the Baptist stands on Swietojanska Street in Warsaw's Old Town, between the Royal Castle and the Old Town Market Square, and entry to the church is free, while the crypts are ticketed. It is the most important church in Warsaw, where Polish kings were crowned and national ceremonies are held. Walking tours of the Old Town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site rebuilt after the Second World War, always include the cathedral.

The crypts hold the tombs of the last dukes of Mazovia, archbishops of Warsaw, the Nobel Prize winner Henryk Sienkiewicz and the first president of Poland, Gabriel Narutowicz. Organ concerts are held regularly in summer. The church is an active parish, and visiting pauses during services. Organ concert tickets are sold at the door on concert days.

Visiting St. John's Archcathedral, Warsaw: what to see

The church was built in the fourteenth century in brick Gothic style and became a cathedral in 1798. Here, in 1791, the Constitution of 3 May was sworn, the first modern constitution in Europe. The cathedral was almost completely destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, when German forces fought in the building and used a remote-controlled tank filled with explosives against it; a fragment of the tank's tracks is displayed on the outside wall. It was rebuilt after the war in a Vistula Gothic style, imitating what it might have looked like in the Middle Ages, rather than the neo-Gothic form of the nineteenth century.

Inside, the church holds the tombs and monuments of Polish dukes and nobles, a sixteenth-century crucifix, and a chapel dedicated to the Baryczka family. A covered gallery connects the cathedral with the Royal Castle, built after an assassination attempt on King Sigismund III in 1620. The crypts are reached by stairs from the church and hold the tombs in a series of vaulted rooms. The chapel of the Miraculous Crucifix holds a crucifix believed to have survived the war, venerated by Warsaw's residents. A memorial to Ignacy Jan Paderewski, the pianist and prime minister, is in the crypt. The stained glass windows were installed after the war. The cathedral's bells ring for national holidays.

St. John's Archcathedral, Warsaw opening hours and the best time to go

The cathedral is open daily, and the crypts keep shorter hours. Summer brings organ concerts and many visitors to the Old Town. Warsaw's winters are cold and often snowy, and the Old Town looks beautiful under snow, with a Christmas market on Castle Square. The anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising on 1 August is marked across the city, with sirens at five in the afternoon. The Constitution Day holiday on 3 May brings ceremonies. Allow about half an hour for the cathedral and crypts, and continue to the Old Town Market Square, a two-minute walk away. The Warsaw Uprising Museum, a short tram ride away, gives a detailed account of the fighting of 1944.