Holy Cross (Leszno)
The Holy Cross Church is a Roman Catholic church in Leszno (Lissa) in Poland.
history
A first Lutheran church in Leszno was built on this site in 1635. It burned down in 1656, was rebuilt and burned down again in 1707. The building design for the third Lutheran church was made by Pompeo Ferrari , the construction work was carried out by Jan Adam Stier. The church, which was completed in a simplified form in 1715 due to the Counter-Reformation , was nevertheless considered the most beautiful Lutheran church in Greater Poland . With the annexation of western parts of Poland with Lissa by Prussia, the congregation came under the supervision of the Prussian Lutheran Upper Consistory in Berlin , whose tasks were taken over by the Ministry of Education in 1808, before the ecclesiastical tasks were transferred to the newly founded Uniate Evangelical Church in the Prussian lands in 1817 . In 1909 the tower was crowned with a spire designed by Karl Martin Frantz in 1743. After 1920 the Lutheran parish of the crucifix moved to the new Uniate Evangelical Church in Poland .
After the destruction by the Red Army in 1945 and the flight and displacement of most of the church members, the most damaged church came into the possession of the Polish Catholic Church in 1946 . In 1982 the Roman Catholic parish was established here.
Lapidary
The lapidarium at the Holy Cross Church was set up in 1950–1959. It consists of over 100 free-standing gravestones dating from the first half of the 17th century to the 19th century. They are located on the walls of the church and on the wall that surrounds the church square. Most of them come from the former Protestant cemeteries in Leszno. The oldest gravestone from 1625, which depicts the blacksmith Nitsch, is located on the southwest corner of the wall of the church square.
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 50 ′ 27.8 " N , 16 ° 34 ′ 17.9" E