Kościół pw. Świętej Trójcy, Wrocław

The Church of the Holy Trinity is the Brothers Hospitallers’ monastery church on Traugutta Street in Wrocław. Built from the early eighteenth century, this late-Baroque church also preserves a moving wartime history: the brothers hid dozens of prisoners of war in its crypt from nineteen forty-four.

The Church of the Holy Trinity is the Brothers Hospitallers’ monastery church on Traugutta Street, dedicated to the Trinity. Its story begins with care for the sick: three Brothers Hospitallers arrived in Wrocław in seventeen eleven, and they began caring for patients the following year. A gift of land at the meeting point of today’s Traugutta and Pułaskiego streets made it possible to build their monastery, hospital and church.

Construction began in seventeen fourteen, and Johann Blasius Peintner revised the church design. The tower received its finial in seventeen twenty-two; the interior then took another twelve years to complete. This is a late-Baroque brick church, rendered on the outside, with a five-storey tower incorporated into its west front and chapels running along both sides of the nave.

Its most remarkable wartime chapter lies below the church. From nineteen forty-four, the brothers secretly sheltered dozens of prisoners of war in the crypt; most survived until the war ended. The building lost only about six percent in nineteen forty-five, though its windows, stained glass, part of the tower and confessionals were destroyed. Between nineteen forty-five and nineteen forty-nine, it served as the temporary parish church for the badly damaged Church of Saint Maurice, before returning to its enduring role as a monastery church.