04 May 2012
Holy Trinity, a Lutheran Peace Church in Silesia
30 Years War, Architecture, Peace Churches, Peace of Westphalia, Poland, Silesia
(click on image for photo tour)
Holy Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in the town of Swidnica in Silesia is one of three Lutheran churches permitted to be constructed in Roman Catholic Silesia by the 1648 Peace of Westphalia which ended the Thirty Years War.
The so-called Peace Churches had to be constructed within one year, and could be built only from wood, loam and straw outside the city walls, without steeples and church bells.
Churches were built in Swidnica, Jawor, and Glogau. The first two survive today and were restored in 2001, the third burned down in 1758.