St Catherine's Church

The largest monument of the Old Town is St Catherine's Church, which is the oldest church in Gdańsk, begun in the 1220s. It was the parish church for the whole town until St Mary's was completed. As is common, the church evolved over centuries and only reached its final shape in the mid-15th century (save for the Baroque top to the tower, added in 1634). The vaulted Gothic interior was originally covered with frescoes, fragments of which were discovered under a layer of plaster.

Note the huge painting (11m long) depicting the entry of Christ to Jerusalem, placed under the organ loft in the left-hand aisle, and the richly carved enclosure of the baptismal font (1585) in the opposite aisle. The astronomer Johannes Hevelius was buried in the church's chancel and there is an 18th-century epitaph above the grave.