Oliwa Cathedral

Gdańsk Oliwa Archcathedral is a church located in Gdańsk, Oliwa district; dedicated to The Holy Trinity, Blessed Virgin Mary and St Bernard. The archcathedral in Oliwa is a three-nave basilica with a transept and a multisided closed presbytery, finished with an ambulatory. The façade is flanked by two slender towers, 46-metres tall each with sharply-edged helmets. It is enlivened by a Baroque portal from 1688, as well as three windows of different sizes and three cartouches. The crossing of the naves is overlooked by a bell tower, a typical element of the Cistercian architecture. The cathedral is 17.7m high, 19m wide and 107m long (97.6m of the interior itself), which makes it the longest Cistercian church in the world.

It holds works of art in Renaissance, Baroque, Rococo and Classical style of great artistic value. All the 23 altars of the cathedral are of great historical value. They are mainly Baroque and Rococo, partly made of marble. Their iconography depicts the main principles of the post-Trent church. Most outstanding are the present High Altar (1688), which is the most profound Baroque work of art in Pomerania; and the Netherland Renaissance style altar, which until 1688 played the role of the main one. The paintings in the altars, presbytery and main nave were made by the famous 17th- century artists: Herman Han (1574–1628), Adolf Boy (1612-1680), Andrzej Stech (1635–1697) and Andreas Schlütera (1660–1714).

The famous great Oliwa organ was designed and constructed between the years 1763 and 1788 by Johann Wilhelm Wulff (Brother Michael, a Cistercian Monk ). The instrument contained 83 registers (5100 pipes), 3 manual keyboards (also manuals; Hauptwerk– great organ, Oberwerk– main organ, Kronwerk– crown organ), one foot keyboard (pedal), mechanical tracker action, and 14 wedge-shaped bellows. The console was independently located in the central part of the matroneum and was the first of such kind in the world.