The Church of St Elizabeth is one of Wroclaw’s most imposing religious buildings, and its distinctive silhouette dominates the area beside the Market Square. It was constructed between the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries as the city’s second parish church, financed by the City Council and the prosperous townspeople. In the sixteenth century, it passed to the Protestant community, which used it until 1945. Today it serves as a Roman Catholic garrison church and, despite repeated destruction and fires, retains its impressive Gothic architecture.
The interior contains significant works of art, including a Gothic and Renaissance altar and numerous funerary monuments belonging to Wroclaw’s bourgeois families. A particularly rewarding experience is the climb to the 91-metre church tower, which offers a spectacular panoramic view over the city. The tower is open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and on Sundays from 1:00 to 4:00 p.m.
In the late 1990s, a monument to the German resistance activist and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was born in Wroclaw, was erected in the square in front of the church as an important gift from the city of Berlin. The Gothic altarists’ house where the acclaimed artist Eugeniusz Get-Stankiewicz lived is also noteworthy; his works are displayed strikingly on its façade.
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