Seminary Church of St. John of Dukla (1838-1842)

John of Dukla is a saint in the Roman Catholic Church who is credited with several miracles. In 1997, he was canonized by Pope John Paul II.

The seminary church of St. John of Dukla is an architectural monument of national importance, one of the main architectural monuments of Zhytomyr. The building in the style of neoclassicism was built in 1838-1842 as a church of the Lutsk-Zhytomyr Theological Seminary instead of the burned church of the Franciscan monastery. Until 1917, the monastery housed a seminary.

During the national liberation uprising “Koliivshchyna” in this monastery hid one of the leaders of the uprising, the legendary Cossack Ivan Gonta.

Before the Second World War, the church premises were converted into a cinema. The tower was demolished from the side of the square, and the entrance was made from the side of Kyivska Street. After the war there was a regional philharmonic, a regional house of folk art and a department of nature of the museum of local lore. The cells of the monastery were used for the regional military enlistment office during the Soviet times and until 2006.

The church is a brick, three-nave basilica made in the order system in simplified traditional Baroque architectural forms. The artist F. Zavadsky took part in its design. The church had to deviate from the canonical rules: since a house was built in front of the entrance to the church in Soviet times, the direction of the main altar was changed – it was changed to the place with the former entrance.

In 1992, the Church of St. John was returned to the Franciscans. Nowadays, the church has been restored by adding a new tower on the side of Teatralna Street, and returned to the faithful. The temple was consecrated on October 25, 1997. On October 6, 2013, a memorial plaque was unveiled on the wall of the shrine to Zygmunt Szczeński Felinski, Archbishop and Metropolitan of Warsaw