UGCC Archcathedral, Przemysl

openas of 2026-10-021600World · Ukrainian tracesPoland

Photo: Henryk Bielamowicz · CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

The main church of the Ukrainians of Zakerzonnia, 12 km from the border.

The Cathedral of St John the Baptist in Przemyśl was built by the Jesuits in 1626–1632 in the early Baroque style; later it was a garrison church. The previous cathedral, now the Church of St Teresa, was lost by the Greek Catholics in 1946; after the war the Discalced Carmelites settled there. In the first half of the 20th century Ukrainians made up between a third and a quarter of the town's population; Przemyśl itself was not touched by the ethnic cleansing of 1944–1947, but after the deportations and Operation Vistula the local Ukrainians, finding themselves “on an island”, began to leave. In 1991, when John Paul II came to Przemyśl, the Carmelites and lay people blockaded the former cathedral, and the Pope celebrated in the garrison church and handed it over to the UGCC. In 1993 a 17th-century iconostasis from Lubaczów was brought here, in 1996 the church became an archcathedral, and in 1996–1999 it was restored. In 2022, as Bishop Bohdan Danylo recalled, Przemyśl was the first to take in people fleeing the russian invasion.