The role of the Protestant legacy in shaping Lower Silesian cultural heritage as exemplified by the refuge church in Borek Strzeliński (Großburg)

Abstract

Protestant refuge churches were built in Silesian Protestant principalities, and in the borderline areas of Saxony, Brandenburg and Poland before the end of Thirty Years’ War and the signing of the Peace of Westphalia. In the most part, the churches were erected by means of adapting Catholic churches to the needs of Protestant believers, e.g. by building emporas (choir galleries), a pulpit and an altar inside the church. The acquisition of churches in Silesia was peaceful, without any violence almost everywhere, and it was not a rare phenomenon that a single church was used by two religions at the same time. At the end of the eighteenth century, there were approximately 110 refugee churches in Silesia. Currently, there are no churches of this type in Lower Silesia, and their extraordinary decoration was preserved in only a few of them. The main aim is to analyse this specific, forgotten sacral Protestent heritage, i.e. refuge churches in Lower Silesia, from the historical, sociological and architectural perspective. The main objective is to focus on the historical importance of the refuge churches in Lower Silesia – restoring identity as exemplified by the church in Großburg (Polish: Borek Strzeliński), analyse the degree to which the Protestant cultural legacy was preserved in the material rural architecture of Großburg and analyse the acceptance of the Evangelical heritage in the mentality of the local community.