History of Grodno Cathedral Basilica
The history of Grodno Cathedral, which is older than the diocese itself and one of the largest churches to be built in the 17th century in the Republic, is linked to the Jesuit Order, which was brought to Grodno by King Stefan Batory at the end of his reign.

However, the Jesuits did not settle in Grodno until 1622. They planned to build their residence on the eastern side of the Market Square. In 1625 a school run by them began operating. The first buildings, including the Church of St. Peter and Paul, were wooden. The construction of the brick church was interrupted by the Moscow War, during which Grodno, including the Jesuit buildings, suffered twice (in 1656 and 1660). The Jesuits returned to Grodno in 1661, reopened the school, and resumed the activities of the student confraternity of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Congregation of the Congregation of the Holy Family). They reopened a school, and the student confraternity of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Student Congregation) also resumed its activities. In 1664, the landowner Wojciech Żelarowski donated an image of the Virgin Mary to the confraternity, which became famous for its miracles. The fame of the image of the Virgin Mary, known as the Congregational or Student Congregation, contributed to speeding up the decision to build a new temple. Work began in 1674 and the first Mass was celebrated on 30 May 1700, although the finishing work was still ongoing. On 6 December 1705, the Bishop of Chełmno, Teodor Potocki, consecrated the church, which was given the name of St Francis Xavier. The ceremony took place in the presence of King August II and Tsar Peter I.

An important stage in the history of the church was the furnishing of the temple with a set of 10 side altars. Six of them were made in 1707-1709 in Königsberg by the sculptor Christopher Peucker: four of them are located in the transept, two by the first pillars of the nave; the other four are probably the work of Vilnius craftsmen (two in 1715, and two more in 1730 and 1731). In 1725, the altar of the miraculous painting was rebuilt, and in 1773 it was moved to the northern chapel, where it remains to this day. In 1736-1737, the main altar was created in Reszel in Warmia by Johann Christian Schmidt, the son-in-law and from 1735 the manager of the workshop of the aforementioned Christopher Peucker, who moved here from Königsberg. The altar's founder, the castellan of Mstislavl, Samuel Lazowy, who together with his wife Constance undertook to finance the entire work, only managed to pay the first instalment before his death, and as his heirs did not provide further funds, the rest of the costs were borne by the Jesuits.

In 1773, the Order was dissolved and its property was taken over by the National Education Commission. St Francis Xavier Church was placed at the disposal of the diocesan authorities. When the Grodno parish church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary burnt down in 1782, services were transferred to the post-Jesuit church, which came to be called the parish church.

The most difficult period for the temple were the years after the Second World War. From 1960, the parish was without a pastor. The temple was not closed and survived thanks to the faithful, who, in the face of the ban on celebrating Mass, gathered there to pray and took care of the maintenance and security of the church. In 1987, the faithful received permission from the authorities to celebrate five Masses a year.

Regular liturgy was resumed in 1988, when Fr Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz became parish priest, soon to be appointed bishop by the Holy Father John Paul II. The place of the solemn ingress became Grodno Parish Church on 25 July 1989. In December 1990 the church was given the title of Minor Basilica, and on 13 April 1991 it became the cathedral of the diocese of Hrodna, which was erected on the same day, with Bishop Aleksander Kashkevich as its Ordinary.

Conservation works
Thanks to the efforts of Bishop Aleksandr Kashkevich, a general restoration was carried out in 1995-1996. The conservation work carried out included the altars of Our Lady of the Congregation (2001) and Our Lady of the Scapular (2001), the tabernacle (2002) and the pulpit (2002-2003). The solemn coronation of the miraculous image of Our Lady of the Congregation took place in 2005.

On 13 July 2006, a fire broke out in the cathedral, severely damaging the main altar. About a quarter of the altarpiece suffered damage, including four statues: the apostles Thomas and James, St Ambrose and St Samuel. The fire also caused the destruction of some of the paintings in the stalls in the Lady Chapel. The interior of the church was covered in a layer of soot. Thanks to the efforts of parish priest Jan Kuczyński, the interior was cleaned and painted, and the paintings on the transept's stalls were restored.

The greatest challenge, however, was the general conservation of the main altar, combined with the stabilisation of its structure, the reconstruction of damaged elements and the restoration of the original colours. It was carried out by a Polish-Belarusian team of specialists, under the direction of the conservator Paweł Sadlej, thanks to the financial assistance of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland, which provided a subsidy to the Ciechanowiecki Collection Foundation at the Royal Castle in Warsaw for conservation work under the 'Protection of Cultural Heritage Abroad' programme.

New publications about Grodno Cathedral
In 2015 a comprehensive monograph on the Grodno Cathedral was published in the series "Materials for the History of Sacred Art in the Eastern Lands of the Former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth" - part IV, Churches and Roman Catholic monasteries of the former Troki voivodship, vol. 2, Grodno Cathedral, ed. Maria Kałamajska-Saeed, Kraków 2015. It uses materials collected in 1994-1998 during the inventory conducted under the direction of Prof. Maria Kałamajska-Saeed, supplemented by the results of the author's queries in 2007-2014 in Moscow and St. Petersburg. The volume contains a study of the buildings constituting the entire former Jesuit ensemble in Grodno, consisting of the church (now the cathedral), the college and school (now prison buildings), the pharmacy (also housing the rectory), the corridors connecting the college with the church and the pharmacy, and the so-called old dormitory, the walls of which now form part of the western wing of the buildings of the bishop's curia.

In 2016, another volume of the series 'Out of the Country' was published by the Department of Cultural Heritage Abroad and War Losses of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The album, dedicated to the Grodno Cathedral, was accompanied by an introduction by Professor Maria Kałamajska-Saeed. The author of the photographs of the architecture and interior of the church, as well as those illustrating the religious life of the cathedral's parish community, is Professor Krzysztof Hejke, a lecturer at the Łódź Film School, an outstanding photographer, cameraman, traveller and publisher who has been documenting the Polish cultural heritage in the former Eastern Territories of the Republic of Poland for many years.

The album was published in a bilingual version - in Polish and Belarusian, with an introduction by His Eminence Bishop Aleksander Kashkevich.