Former beguine monastery and church in Jawor

By the old route through the centre of Jawor stands a building that has changed function almost every generation for two and a half centuries: it was a monastery church, then a school, a library, a warehouse, and today it serves as a meeting place for a Pentecostal congregation. The structure itself - the church with an adjoining monastery building - has survived all these changes in almost unaltered form.

A beguine foundation from 1749

The plot for the church and monastery was bought in 1749 by beguines, a community of laywomen living by monastic rules without taking perpetual vows. The land was sold to them by the Counts von Hochberg. On the plot thus acquired, a brick church was built on a rectangular plan, with no distinct chancel, covered by a barrel vault with stucco decoration. An octagonal ridge turret was placed on the gabled roof, and inside, fragments of a Baroque architectural altar have survived to this day. A small, two-storey monastery building with a plain, undecorated front elevation was added to the church.

School, library, sanatorium

After the dissolution of the community, the monastery building began to serve educational purposes. From 1812 to 1847 it housed an Evangelical school for girls, and then, until 1904, a Catholic school. A year later a library and reading room were set up on the ground floor, and a preventorium for lung patients on the upper floor. In the 1930s the church itself was turned into a theatre prop store, and after 1945 it served as a furniture warehouse.

Today: the Anastasis congregation

Today the "Anastasis" Pentecostal Church congregation is active in the building. It is one of the few surviving traces in Jawor of the beguines' activity in Silesia, although the interior is not open for tourist visits - it is an active meeting place for a religious community.

Practical information

• The building is located in Jawor, in Jawor County.
• Nearby stands the Church of Peace in Jawor, and almost across the street, Jawor Castle.
• It is worth combining the visit with the Regional Museum in Jawor, a few hundred metres away.
• This is an active place of worship of a different community than the original one - before your visit it is worth checking whether the interior is open at that time.