The Holy Cross Cathedral - the main spiritual centre of Uzhhorod
The true pride of Uzhhorod - the beautiful and majestic Holy Cross Cathedral, as well as the residence of the Mukachevo eparchy, both set on Kapitulna Street, not far from Uzhhorod Castle. This is, without doubt, the finest sacred architectural monument in the city, one that has long since become its calling card.
The birth of an architectural marvel: the Holy Cross Cathedral
The church has a very ancient and very fascinating history. According to research by Yosyp Kobal, a well-known historian of the city on the Uzh, as early as the beginning of the 17th century townsfolk lived here in small houses. The city’s «mayor» of the time, János Drugeth, signed a decree transferring the Jesuit college from the town of Humenné in Slovakia to the place where the people of Uzhhorod lived. It was from that time that the building of the church began, and it was completed in 1646. The Jesuit spiritual centre consisted of a school, a church and the college itself, and had a single tower dedicated to the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.
When, nearby in Uzhhorod Castle a terrible fire broke out - the Catholic church burned down, the Jesuits decided it was time to enlarge the church. And so a new Catholic church came into being, built in the late Baroque style. But as early as the beginning of the 1770s, Pope Clement XIV ordered the dissolution of the Jesuit order, after which its members left Ungvár. A few years later the church was handed over to the Mukachevo Greek Catholic eparchy, and the building began to be reconstructed. It was at this time that the beautiful iconostasis appeared here. The church was ceremonially consecrated by Andriy Bachynskyi, a bishop renowned in those days, on 15 October 1780, right on the name day of the Tsarevna Maria Theresa.
After this the church was renewed both inside (the iconostasis, the wall paintings) and outside (a portico with four columns of the Corinthian order was added in front of the entrance, a clock was installed on the tower, along with a double staircase of red marble). The renowned Transcarpathian artist Yosyp Bokshai painted the church’s ceiling with a scene of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. The marvellous stained-glass windows in the church - are also the work of his golden hands.
The church went through hard times after the Second World War, when the Soviet authorities began to persecute the Church. When all the centres of Greek Catholicism were shut down, the Mukachevo eparchy became the only functioning one in the entire Soviet Union. Even so, the cathedral was nonetheless taken away and handed over to the Orthodox Church. It was only at the beginning of the nineties of the last century that the Greek Catholic eparchy managed to recover the church.
The Holy Cross Cathedral: the treasures of the church
Today the Holy Cross Cathedral enchants and astonishes with its opulence, its monumentality, its refinement and 
In the cathedral’s undercroft lies a crypt where, since the very founding of the church, distinguished Catholics have been buried. The Mukachevo bishops are also buried here, among them Andriy Bachynskyi, and also - the youngest bishop of the church, Teodor Romzha, whom Pope John Paul II proclaimed Blessed.
Among the sacred and wondrous treasures of the Holy Cross Cathedral - a vestment with starling-motif ornamentation, presented to the Jesuits in the 17th century by the Drugeths, precious icons, ancient frescoes, stained-glass windows and murals, silver candlesticks from the time of Maria Theresa, and the largest and oldest clock in Uzhhorod , set upon the cathedral’s tower, and the chimes in the bell towers, brought specially from Vienna.
You can admire the beauty of this architectural masterpiece on our excursions around Uzhhorod: the walking, evening or auto-express.
