Churches of Peace: The Churches That Defied The Holy Roman Emperor

In the towns of Jawor and Świdnica, in the Silesia neighborhood of Wroclaw, Poland, stand two magnificent timber-framed churches. The Holy Roman Emperor who ordered them built never expected to see them completed. In fact, he never wanted them built in the first place, for they were Protestant churches. But against all odds and under tremendous political and physical constraints, the Protestants displayed extraordinary resourcefulness, managing to complete three churches of such scale and complexity that was unknown in European wooden architecture. To date they are the largest wooden churches in the world. For much of early modern history, Europe was engaged in bloody religious wars fought between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants. Most of these wars came to an end with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which gave each ruler the right to determine the religion of his own state. The terms of the treaty also required the ruler to exercise tolerance towards other minority religions allowing their followers to practice their faith freely. At that time Silesia had a large number of Lutheran followers, and according to the principle of cuius regio eius religio, upheld by the Peace of Westphalia, which authorized the ruler to impose his own religion upon those who he or she ruled, the Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand III, who was a zealous Catholic, abolished the Lutheran church, thereby depriving its followers the right to practice their faith. It was only through Swedish diplomatic intervention that Ferdinand III reluctantly gave the townsfolk permission to build three churches. The Ratification of the Treaty of Münster, 15 May 1648, by Dutch painter Gerard ter Borch  (1617–1681) In order to make sure the churches never got built nor lasted long, the Emperor set down certain conditions that were difficult to comply with.