Church of Grace in Jelenia Góra

On Sunday 1 August 1745 at 2 pm, lightning struck the tower of the Church of Grace in Jelenia Góra. It ran down a metal rod holding the canopy over the pulpit and reached the preacher – Pastor Gottlob Adolph was killed in the middle of his sermon. An epitaph commemorating his death still hangs on the church's south wall, and the church itself, with a dome rising to 57 metres, is the largest of the six Silesian Churches of Grace.

History: a church negotiated by the Swedes

After the Thirty Years' War, the Catholic Habsburgs took hundreds of churches away from Silesia's Protestants. The turning point came with the convention signed on 1 September 1707 at Altranstädt between King Charles XII of Sweden and Emperor Joseph I. Protestants got some churches back and were allowed to build six new ones – in Cieszyn, Jelenia Góra, Kamienna Góra, Kożuchów, Milicz and Żagań. They became known as the Churches of Grace.

The Lutherans of Jelenia Góra (then Hirschberg) commissioned Martin Frantz. On 21 March 1709 the architect presented his plans together with a wooden model, which survives today in the Karkonosze Museum. His clients wanted to combine the tradition of the Silesian Churches of Peace in Jawor and Świdnica with the grandeur of St Catherine's Church in Stockholm – a model probably suggested by Frantz himself, who had begun his journeyman travels in the Swedish capital. Construction lasted from 1709 to 1718.

Until 1945 it was a Lutheran church dedicated to the Cross of Christ. After the war and the expulsion of the German population, it passed to the Catholic Church; today it is the Garrison Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross.

What to see

• A Greek-cross plan about 74 m long, with a flat octagonal dome and a tall lantern. The height including the cross on top is 57 m.
• The pulpit from 1717, carved from a single block of sandstone and funded by Melchior Berthold. This is where Pastor Adolph died.
• The organ: an 18th-century case by Michael Röder of Berlin hides an instrument built in 1906 by Schlag & Söhne of Świdnica – 4,571 pipes, three manuals and pedals. It is the largest surviving instrument by that firm.
• Frescoes by Felix Anton Scheffler in the nave and by Johann Franz Hoffmann in the dome and transepts.
• Galleries: the church has about 4,020 seats and room for as many people standing.
• Pastor Adolph's epitaph, showing lightning striking the pulpit, on the outer south wall next to the stairs leading to the organ.

Did you know

The organ sparked a two-year dispute: its donor, Christian Mentzel (1727), wanted it where it stands today, while the pastor and congregation preferred the west wall. The donor won. On 16 November 1806 the roof, towers and dome burned down; repairs took until 1811. Pastor Adolph, killed by the lightning, was a poet and co-editor of the Hirschberg hymnbook – a village maidservant died with him, and several people were injured.

Cemetery and burial chapels

The church is surrounded by a former cemetery, now a park, with 19 burial chapels of wealthy town families dating from 1717–1770, when the local linen trade was booming. Some are attributed to Frantz himself, including the Glafey family chapel of 1716 and the Baumgarten chapel of 1719.

Tripto tip

The church stands on ul. 1 Maja, east of the old town. Allow about an hour for the interior, the epitaph and a stroll among the chapels. It is an active church, so visit outside service times. Walk round the south side before you go in – the lightning epitaph is easy to miss, and without it the story of the pulpit loses half its impact.