In the 1st half of the 14th century, the building of the town hospital was built on the southern outskirts of Prešov, to which a smaller chapel was added in the same century. In 1429, a new hospital church dedicated to the Virgin Mary was built on its site. A hospital and almshouse were located in its neighbourhood. After the Reformation, the hospital church became the evangelical church of the Slovak population of Prešov. After the decree of the ruler Leopold I in 1673 the church was handed over to the Minorites, who came to Prešov in the same year. In addition to the church, the Minorites were also given ownership of a hospital. In the 17th century it was connected with the Minorite monastery and in the 18th century it was rebuilt in the Baroque style into its present form. In 1757, four larger frescoes from the life of St. John the Baptist were painted. They are still preserved on the ceiling of the nave. From 1818 the church belonged to the Greek-Catholic bishopric. In the northern chapel, in front of the altar, there is a sarcophagus with the remains of Bishop Peter Paul Gojdič. His remains were placed in the sarcophagus after his beatification in 2001. On the north wall of the cathedral, behind glass, is a copy of the Shroud of Turin, which the Prešov Cathedral received as a gift from the Archbishopric of Turin in Italy in 2003. It is a facsimile, which was produced in only four copies. In the 1950s, the church was given to the Orthodox Church when the Greek Catholic Church was abolished in Czechoslovakia. It was returned to it in 1968, after the restoration of the Greek Catholic Church.
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