The Cathedral of St. John the Baptist

Built from 1176 until the middle of the 15th century, Kamien Cathedral is the oldest and most valuable building on the Baltic coast, and its cloistered presbytery is the only such cathedral building to have survived in Poland. It was built of brick and granite stones, in the form of a three-nave basilica with a transept, a presbytery ending in an apse, a bishop’s chapel and chapter-house on either side of the presbytery, a cloister adjoining the northern nave and a tower adjoining the nave from the west.

The oldest, eastern part of the cathedral presents a high-class Romanesque and early Gothic building design founded on the classical Latin cross plan . The building is characterised by the finesse of the “frame” facade divisions and the precision of the architectural details decorating the facades of the portals, windows and vaults.

The masterly glazed terracotta details and the original forms of the pillars and capitals at the rainbow arch point to the workmanship of famous artists brought to Kamien from northern and western Europe.

The interior of the cathedral contains works of art, founded from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. Particularly noteworthy are the 17th-century baroque organ founded by Duke Ernest Boguslaw de Croy and the richly ornamented baroque pulpit dating from 1682 – the work of Johann Grundmann of Frankfurt and Heinrich Redtel.