A church has stood on this site since 1593, shortly after Härnösand itself was founded. It became a cathedral in 1647, when the town was made the seat of a new church district covering the newly acquired provinces of Jämtland and Härjedalen. That earlier building burned down during Russian raids in 1721 and was rebuilt the following year, before eventually being replaced by the present structure, erected between 1842 and 1846 by master builder Anders Magnus Atterberg. Part of the original stone church's north wall is thought to survive within the current south wall.
The building is a neoclassical, three-aisled stone church with a transept to the east and a rounded apse. An octagonal bell tower rises above the crossing, and the west front has a Doric portico flanked by two smaller towers. It is sometimes said to be Sweden's smallest cathedral.
Inside, the altarpiece depicting Golgotha is the work of David von Cöln. Four 17th-century chandeliers, rescued from the earlier cathedral, have a dramatic history: in 1720 they were packed into chests and sunk in the nearby sound to keep them from Russian troops, then hurriedly re-hidden in a burial vault the following year when the danger proved to have been premature. A delicate silver baptismal font, a Spanish Rococo piece made in 1777, is reportedly used only at the midnight services of Easter and Christmas because of its fragility; a sturdier stone font serves at other times.
The cathedral's bells and carillon also carry their own story of destruction and renewal: the original bells melted in the 1721 fire, and their metal was recast into new ones in 1723, later recast again. A 36-bell carillon was added in 1981. The present organ was built in 1975 by the Danish firm Bruno Christensen & Sønner and has 57 stops across four manuals and pedal, but its striking case is much older, surviving from the Cahman organ installed in 1731.
A renovation carried out in 2010–2011 included general restoration and redecoration, and saw the chancel reordered with two new chapels.
