St Florian's Cathedral

Why is it significant?

Stand on the corner and look up at the two red-brick spires, sharp as pencils, that dominate the whole of Praga's skyline. This is the Cathedral of St Michael the Archangel and St Florian, though everybody in Warsaw simply calls it St Florian's.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Stand on the corner and look up at the two red-brick spires, sharp as pencils, that dominate the whole of Praga's skyline. This is the Cathedral of St Michael the Archangel and St Florian, though everybody in Warsaw simply calls it St Florian's.

It was built between 1888 and 1904 to designs by Józef Pius Dziekoński, in a deliberately Polish Gothic style, red brick like the medieval churches of Kraków and Gdańsk. Dziekoński was the leading church architect of his generation in the Kingdom of Poland and designed many brick churches across the country, but this was his showpiece. The timing was no accident. Warsaw was then ruled by the Russian Empire, and just across the avenue the authorities had already raised a gleaming Orthodox church. It is often said that Praga's Catholics wanted their towers to be taller, and visible from the far bank of the Vistula. At around seventy-five metres, they are.

In September 1944, as the Red Army approached Praga, the retreating Germans blew up both towers, and much of the church came down with them. Across the river, the Warsaw Uprising was still being fought, and the people of Praga could only watch the smoke over the left bank.

After the war, the parishioners rebuilt their church brick by brick, with money and labour gathered over many years, in a state that was officially atheist and in no hurry to help. The work went on into the 1970s. In 1992 St Florian's became the cathedral of the new diocese of Warsaw-Praga.

And why St Florian? He is the patron saint of firefighters, and for wooden, crowded Praga that was a practical choice: the district had burned many times. Polish firefighters still celebrate his feast day, the fourth of May. Folk etymology even ties the name Praga to the old Polish word for roasting or burning, from the forest cleared by fire to make the first fields. Now cross al. Solidarności and look for the five onion domes on the other side.