Church of St John the Baptist in Gniezno

On the vault corbels a fox stalks some geese, a pelican feeds its young, and St Menas with his camels, a 3rd-century martyr, looks down from a corbel – a reminder of the Middle Eastern roots of the order that once ran this church. The Gothic Church of St John the Baptist in Gniezno, formerly belonging to the Canons of the Holy Sepulchre, has 14th-century wall paintings in its chancel that are among the oldest of their kind in the Greater Poland region. It lies a few minutes from the Market Square, but is easy to miss on the way to the cathedral.

History: guardians of the Holy Sepulchre in Gniezno

The Order of Canons Regular of the Holy Sepulchre was founded in Jerusalem during the First Crusade. Around 1179 Przecław, a canon of Gniezno, brought the order here from Miechów and gave them the Church of the Holy Cross on the outskirts of town. In 1242/1243 Dukes Przemysł I and Bolesław the Pious founded a church and monastery for them next to the hospital in Grzybowo. After the Teutonic Knights ravaged Gniezno in 1331, the present brick church was built – the chancel around the mid-14th century, the nave a little later.

The tower dates from the 15th–16th century, and in 1666 it received a Baroque cupola clad in copper sheet. In the late 17th and 18th centuries the interior was plastered over, hiding the Gothic paintings. In 1821 the order was dissolved: the church passed to the Protestants, and the monastery became St John's Catholic school.

What to see

• Gothic wall paintings in the chancel, painted a secco in the third quarter of the 14th century and uncovered from beneath the plaster in the early 20th century. In the lower band you can make out King David with his harp, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, Christ in Limbo, the Coronation of the Virgin, the beheading of St John and Salome's dance; between the scenes are shields with the double cross – the emblem of the order – and tiny kneeling canons.
• 18 heads of prophets and patriarchs, larger than life, on the vault cells.
• Corbels of artificial stone with allegories: the fox and geese, the pelican, lions, masks and St Menas.
• Keystones – one with a plain heraldic shield, the other with the order's double cross.
• Sedilia – semicircular arcaded niches where the canons sat.

Did you know?

The Canons of the Holy Sepulchre spread the custom of setting up a symbolic Tomb of Christ on Good Friday – a tradition still alive in Polish churches today. The paintings are linked to artists who worked on Gniezno Cathedral under Archbishop Jarosław Bogoria Skotnicki. They were applied to a thin layer of limewash through which the regular brick bond still shows.

Tripto tip

The church is on ul. św. Jana, a few minutes' walk from the Market Square and the Franciscan church, on Gniezno's Royal Route. No official source publishes regular opening hours for visitors – ask at the Lech Hill visitor office (ul. Kolegiaty 2, tel. +48 602 708 231) about getting in. Allow 15–30 minutes for the paintings; a camera with a good zoom helps, as the prophets' heads are high up on the vault. Combine your visit with the cathedral and the Gniezno Doors on Lech Hill.