Szlak JelonkówJelenia Góra Town Trail · the short route
The Minor Basilica of Saint Erasmus and St Pancras
The parish church stands in the eastern part of the chartered town, right by the former walls, which curved around the churchyard. It is the oldest place of worship in Jelenia Góra and the only building here to have survived every change of denomination, border and regime while going on doing the same thing. It is the sixth stop on the city centre route – and the only one where it is worth walking right round the building before going in.
Henricus the parish priest, and a fire that left nothing
The oldest trace of the parish is a ducal document of 1288, in which the local priest, one Henricus, appears as a witness. The church of that time is unknown to us – it burned in 1303 and not even a description survives. It was rebuilt under Henry of Jawor, between 1304 and 1346, but that building too remains a puzzle: we do not know what it looked like or exactly where it stood in relation to today’s walls.
That is not unusual. In Silesian towns of the period the parish church was rebuilt roughly every generation, and a fire was an expected event rather than a catastrophe – timber roof frames, candles and kitchens in the surrounding buildings saw to that.
Built over three generations
The church you see today was begun around 1380 and finished more than a century later. First came the chancel and the outer walls of the nave – enough to hold services in. In the first half of the fifteenth century the aisles were completed and the west tower added, though its internal buttresses suggest it may be older than the body of the church. The vaults of the chancel and the main nave were closed only in the second half of the fifteenth century.
The founders are unknown. What is known is that in the fifteenth century painters and masons from Jelenia Góra were mentioned all over Silesia, so the church was most likely built by a local workshop rather than an imported crew. The material is rubble stone, with dressed sandstone kept for what is seen close up: ribs, corbels, portals and window jambs.
Why the chancel is so long
The proportions of this church betray two different fashions. The chancel is unusually long and as tall as the main nave – a layout that imitated the thirteenth-century churches of the mendicant orders, where what mattered was room for a preacher and his listeners, not effect. The body, by contrast, is wide and almost square, which was typical of Silesia.
The tower is not uniform either: square and open with arcades at ground level, octagonal in its upper storeys. Beside it stands a polygonal turret containing the stairs – a practical solution that kept the staircase out of the tower’s interior.
The portal that was once the main entrance
The richest portal of the church is not where you would look for it. It is in the southern wall of the chancel: stepped, crowned with a carved tympanum, its archivolt framed in an ogee arch, with niches at the sides that once held figures. Above the niches are lacework canopies with pinnacles ending in finials.
There is a simple explanation for this hierarchy. In the first phase of building the services were held in the finished chancel while the nave was still going up – so this was the way the faithful came in, and this portal had to look the part. It is worth stopping here for another reason too: the figures in the tympanum have irregular proportions, huge hands and large heads, and the body disappears under the folds of the robes. That is not incompetence but convention – the carver stressed what carried the meaning: the gesture and the face.
The masks that hold up the vault
The main nave and the chancel are covered by a late-Gothic net vault. It rests on short shafts ending in corbels carved as human and devilish masks. It is a detail easy to miss, because you have to tip your head back and look for it – and it is one of the more interesting things in this interior.
The windows have stone tracery with trefoil and fish-bladder motifs; the western window in the south aisle was given a more elaborate pattern than the rest.
Two fires and two faiths
In 1549 fire destroyed the roof and the tower. Rebuilding took three years, and the masters Lucas of Świdnica and Hans Körner are recorded as working on it – among the few names we have from the history of this building.
The second fire broke out in 1634, during the Thirty Years’ War – the same fire that consumed St Anne’s Chapel at the Wojanowska Gate and the chapel that stood where the Orthodox church is today. This time the vaults held and saved the interior.
The church was in the hands of the Lutheran community from 1524, because Jelenia Góra, like most Silesian towns, turned Lutheran. During the war the building changed hands – the heritage record ends the Protestant period in 1629 – and the Catholics took it over for good in 1654; eight years later, in 1662, Jesuits brought into the town carried out a thorough renovation. The Baroque refitting of the interior came in the first half of the eighteenth century.
For the Protestants that meant half a century without a church of their own. That changed only with the Treaty of Altranstädt of 1 September 1707, after which the emperor allowed six Churches of Grace to be built in Silesia – one of them is the Jelenia Góra Church of the Elevation of the Holy Cross, consecrated in 1718 and standing on this same route, a quarter of an hour’s walk away.
What is inside
The furnishings date mostly from after the Catholics returned, so a Gothic structure carries Baroque decoration. The high altar was made by Tomasz Weisfeldt. The oldest piece is the pulpit – Renaissance, wooden, polychromed, from 1591, more than a century earlier than the rest. The stalls are dated 1576, with a second, later set from the eighteenth century. The organ was built by Casparini in 1706, and there are two fonts from different periods: a Baroque one of about 1720 and a neo-Gothic one from the middle of the nineteenth century.
The graveyard that stayed on the walls
The most interesting part, though, is outside. Set into the walls is a substantial group of epitaphs and stone grave slabs from the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries – what remains of the churchyard, closed off on the north-east by the town walls. When the graveyard was cleared, the slabs went into the walls, and there they have stayed.
Between the buttresses of the chancel stands a Mannerist funerary chapel of 1609, open through two arcades, and on the opposite side a second one from the early eighteenth century. Walking round the church is therefore a visit in itself, needing neither an entrance nor opening hours.
Where the basilica title comes from
Minor basilica is an honorary title granted by the pope to churches of particular importance. The Jelenia Góra parish church received it on 15 May 2011 from Benedict XVI. It was listed as a monument much earlier, on 29 March 1949 – among the first buildings in post-war Jelenia Góra.
What else is nearby
A few steps away is the Town Hall Square with its arcades, and by the town hall door stands the stag Rajcuś. The route leads from here towards the Wojanowska Gate and on to the Church of Grace, ending at the Karkonosze Museum. All the figurines along the way are on the list of stags.
The nearest stag is Witalis, sixty metres away towards the Wojanowska Gate. In the other direction, just under a hundred metres off, stands Italjan.
Frequently asked questions
How old is the basilica in Jelenia Góra? The parish is attested in 1288, but the present walls were begun around 1380 and the vaults closed only in the second half of the fifteenth century. The earlier church burned down in 1303.
Why is it a basilica and not just a church? Minor basilica is an honorary papal title. The Jelenia Góra parish church received it on 15 May 2011 from Benedict XVI.
What is worth seeing inside? The net vault resting on corbels carved as human and devilish masks, the pulpit of 1591, the sixteenth-century stalls, the Casparini organ of 1706 and the high altar by Tomasz Weisfeldt.
Do you have to go inside to see anything? No. Epitaphs and grave slabs from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries are set into the outer walls, and two open funerary chapels stand by the chancel. The church’s richest portal is outside too, in the southern wall of the chancel.
Was the church ever Protestant? Yes, for over a century – the Lutheran community used it from 1524. It returned to the Catholics for good in 1654, with the Jesuits. The Protestants got a church of their own only after the Treaty of Altranstädt of 1707 – today’s Church of the Elevation of the Holy Cross.
Who built this church? The founders are unknown. It was probably the work of a local Silesian workshop – in the fifteenth century painters and masons from Jelenia Góra were mentioned across the region.
