A Neo-Gothic brick church from 1898-1902 in central Katowice, the cathedral of the Katowice diocese from 1925 to 1957.
The Church of Saints Peter and Paul stands on ulica Mikołowska in Katowice's Śródmieście district. It is a brick Neo-Gothic church with a tower 86 metres high, built at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries for the southern part of the then rapidly growing Katowice. For more than thirty years it was a cathedral, before the title passed to the Church of Christ the King.
After the consecration of St Mary's Church in 1870 the number of parishioners kept growing, and after twenty years it was decided that the parish had to be divided. In 1892 the church board bought land in the southern, then still undeveloped part of the city. There was debate over whether the new church should be Neo-Romanesque or Neo-Gothic. The decision was made by the Bishop of Wrocław, Georg Kopp, who chose Neo-Gothic and ordered the design from the Wrocław diocesan builder Joseph Ebers. The initiator of the construction was the parish priest of St Mary's, Father Wiktor Schmidt.
Construction began on 1 May 1898, and the foundation stone was blessed on 18 September of the same year. The bricks were supplied by the Pollan brickworks, the sandstone came from Karol Pokorny's quarry, and the roof tiles from Niemodlin. The finished church was consecrated on 27 April 1902.
After part of Upper Silesia was incorporated into Poland, the church became in 1922 the pro-cathedral of the Apostolic Administration in Upper Silesia. A papal bull of 11 November 1925 made it the cathedral of the Katowice diocese, and on 3 January 1926 the first bishop, August Hlond, was consecrated here. In 1957 cathedral status was transferred to the Church of Christ the King, today's Cathedral of Christ the King, located less than a kilometre away.
The church is built of brick with clinker cladding, on a Latin cross plan. It has a pseudo-basilica body with a hall interior, a transept and a five-sided chancel. The only tower stands on the axis of the main nave and ends in a polygonal pyramidal spire. Above the main portal is a window with brick tracery, and higher up a rose window, also with brick tracery. The five bells were cast by the firm F. Otto of Hemelingen and were blessed on 8 September 1901.
The interior is a three-aisled hall with a transept and rib vaults. The stained glass with figures of Saints Peter and Paul, the Holy Family, Our Lady of Sorrows and Jesus the friend of children was made by the Racibórz firm Lazar. A Neo-Romanesque font from 1903 from the workshop of Heinrich Mrowietz has survived, as well as the figures of Peter and Paul from the original high altar, placed in the porch under the tower. The organ from 1973, built by the firm of Bronisław Cepka of Popowo, has 48 stops. The first instrument was made in 1902 by Ernst Kurzer of Gliwice. In a side chapel are the graves of Bishop Teofil Bromboszcz, Archbishop Szczepan Wesoły and Father Filip Bednorz.
In 1967 a storm damaged the tower, and the cast-iron cross destroyed at that time fell into the interior and damaged the organ. The church was entered in the register of immovable monuments on 11 August 1992.
In front of the church, a Pietà sculpture in artificial stone was unveiled in 1913. Next to it stands the presbytery from 1899-1900, designed by the same architect, and the Catholic Union House from 1914-1916 to a design by Albert Köhler. In the interwar period political party congresses were held there, attended among others by Wojciech Korfanty.
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