Throughout its long and tragic history, the building stayed mostly intact, making it one of the oldest and most precious sacral monuments in Poland.

The coffin was made by Peter von der Rennen of pure silver in 1662 after the previous one, established in 1623 by King Sigismund III Vasa himself, was robbed by the Swedes in 1655, during the Swedish invasion.

The religious temple dates back to the end of the ninth century, when an oratory was built in the shape of a rectangular nave.

At the end of the tenth century Duke Mieszko I of Poland built a new temple on a cruciform plan and remodeled the existing nave oratory.

Before the arrival of St. Adalbert of Prague in Gniezno, Prince Bolesław I the Brave, later the first king of Poland, rebuilt the temple according to the plan of a rectangle, elevating it later to the rank of a cathedral.

He then called the Congress of Gniezno, where Polish Prince Bolesław I the Brave and the Emperor discussed plans to create a joint kingdom of Germany, France, Rome, England and Slavic States.

In 1038 Czech prince Bretislav I surrounded and conducted a siege of the city, destroying and robbing the borough and the precious treasures inside the cathedral.

In the years 1103–1104 a synod was held with the participation of the papal legate associated with the retrieval and placing of the precious relics of St. Adalbert in the cathedral.

A few years later, Duke Bolesław III Wrymouth donated a substantial sum of money for the preservation of his tomb as well as the structure.

In 1175 the famous bronze Gniezno Doors were placed in the cathedral and two years later, the Duke of Greater Poland, Mieszko III the Old, visited the site.

Ten years later, on the same site of the former cathedral, a Gothic temple was built under the personal supervision of Archbishop Jarosław Bogoria Skotnicki.

The elliptical cupola covering the late-baroque Potocki Chapel, designed by Pompeo Ferrari and built 1727–1730, is the most beautiful in the cathedral.

The chapel is embellished with two precious renaissance tombstones: the first was sculpted from red marble by Bartolommeo Berecci and features the reclining figure of Abp.

In the center of presbytery of the cathedral stands the golden baldachin (based on the Bernini Altar) and beneath it the silver gilded baroque reliquary – the coffin of St. Adalbert with a wooden, probably cedar, box dating from the twelfth century covered with reliefs with the remains of the saint inside.

On the north side of the chancel (presbytery) there is a gold-plated stool with the emblem of Primate Stefan Wyszyński and above the throne hangs the coat of arms of the present Archbishop of Gniezno.