Kościół pw. Świętego Henryka, Wrocław

St Henry’s Church is the twin-towered brick church on Gliniana Street, built as a basilica with the ground plan of a Latin cross. Its tall nineteenth-century character is Neo-Gothic: an interpretation of medieval Gothic for a later age. Joseph Ebers designed it, and construction ran from 1890 to 1893.

Bishop Heinrich Förster made the project possible by leaving his entire inheritance for it; Cardinal Georg Kopp consecrated the completed church in 1893. Take in the front of the building: the broad rose window is framed by two eight-sided towers, while green glazed ceramic picks out the corners. This was Wrocław’s first church of such scale erected after the Kulturkampf, at a time when the former villages of Huby and Glinianki were being absorbed into the city.

War damaged the church, particularly the chancel walls, and the postwar rebuilding repaired the loss. In 2003, the towers regained their monumental spires, shaped to recall their appearance before 1945. Inside, the original pulpit survives, along with a fresco of Mary set among Wrocław church towers.