Parish Church (ruins)

Historical Monuments

Description

The Gubin town parish is an oriented, brick late Gothic complex with a visible influence of Hinrich Brunsberg's Pomeranian school of sacred architecture. Despite significant damage during World War II, the main three-nave, four-span body of the building is well-preserved, joining the width of the presbytery with a polygonal bypass. The perimeter walls of the church with buttresses, pillars, the western part of the tower, chapels and the northern part of the sacristy are preserved in a comparable condition. The latter is decorated with a double-span rib vault. The chapels located between the buttresses, closed with stellar and net vaults and roofs, run around the entire wreath of the church. The six-storey tower was topped with an attic and an octagonal lantern, covered with a domed cupola. The spiral staircase leading to the tower and the lecture hall located between the 4th and 6th floors with a rostrum and presidential table were opened for tourist use.

Historical background

The ruin of the parish church is the central point of the city and its most magnificent monument. The first mention of the so-called parish church dates back to 1324. Then Guben was one of the largest commercial towns in Silesia and Lusatia. The church was built in the Romanesque style, in the form of a three-nave basilica. As a result of damage after earthquakes in the fourteenth century, for safety reasons, the building was demolished, and in its place, the construction of a new gothic church - hall with a six-storey, rectangular tower with a porch. It is his body that stands in the square. St. John Paul II to this day. The church received its final shape and architectural design in 1844. The Pharaoh was the target of Soviet artillery on February 19, 1945, on fire. The gunfire and fire brought the facility to ruin.

Due to the enormous, approximately 90% destruction that the city suffered during World War II and the nationwide prioritization of the reconstruction of Warsaw and basic buildings, the costly and labor-intensive reconstruction of the church ruins was pushed to the background.

Only over 60 years later, in 2005, the Polish Fara Gubińska Foundation, Polish-German Meeting Center, and the German Association Supporting the Reconstruction of the Parish Church, were established. Thanks to this initiative, on June 1, 2007, the dome of the church tower received a new helmet. In the same year, the crown of the walls was renovated, and the interior of the church was cleaned earlier, removing hundreds of tons of debris. The following years slowly and systematically bring the building back to life. In 2011-2012, new concrete ceilings, including metal stairs, were made in the tower. In 2011, new windows were installed on the tower, and on June 9, 2017, a new symbol was officially handed over - a weathervane at the top of the church tower.

In 2021, further archaeological work began, focusing on the research of the baroque altar. Further specific plans related to the parish church are unknown. It should be noted that renovation and conservation work on such a scale require very large financial outlays from the ministerial office or the European Union.