It was initially built outside the city walls, with first mentions of its existence originating from 1380.
The church complex also included the Corpus Christi Cemetery and a hospital for patients with infectious diseases, mainly lepers. For this reason, the unique, beautiful, baroque pulpit was placed on the external facade of the building. The temple was destroyed many times by fires and in battles with the Teutonic Knights, as well as during the disciplining of the rebelling Gdańsk inhabitants by Stephen Báthory.
The Polish Catholic parish was founded in 1945, when one May Sunday saw the gathering of people who had arrived to develop the old Polish Gdańsk and make usable the walls with the burnt out sockets. The buildings preserved next to the church became the residences of the first pioneer settlers – followers of the National Church. They concentrated around the devastated church.
During the most recent World War, the damage to the church was relatively low – hence the preservation of its original interior. The temple is richly decorated, containing a wooden pulpit, which was created in the 18th Century to commemorate the preacher Jakub Hegge, who conducted the first Protestant sermons. Numerous depictions of the Gdańsk coat of arms are also present in various places of the temple- both the church and the hospital were supported by the city, so this was a way to repay the material involvement to the magistrate. The central element of the temple is a baroque altar with a copy of Raphael’s painting of the Holy Family.
In 2002, as a result of the efforts of the parish priest, the Monument-Cemetery of the Lost Cemeteries was opened (next to the church). This is a symbol connecting the past with the future, a monument to the multi-religious and multinational Gdańsk.
