Kościół Świętego Jana Bożego, Warszawa

Kościół Świętego Jana Bożego is the church before you, serving Warsaw’s Bonifratrzy, the Brothers Hospitallers. Antonio Solari is named as its architect. Its Baroque manner gives worship an expressive, ceremonial frame, yet this community’s story is also medical.

Work on the present church began in 1728, after the expansion of the Saxon royal residence forced the brothers to leave an earlier church and convent. A hospital accompanied the new foundation: the initial ward had eight beds, and a later building made room for thirty-four patients. During the Warsaw Uprising, this church, its hospital and monastic buildings became a resistance position, defended until the twenty-fifth of August 1944.

War left the complex severely damaged. The church was rebuilt afterward, but the hospital was never reconstructed. Within, memorial tablets honour the Home Army and Father Serafin Kloc, whose support made the rebuilding possible.