Franziskaner Kloster, plac Wolności, Opole

The Franciscans were brought to Opole as 1238 by Ladislaus I of Opole. He also founded a church and monastery complex, whose construction was begun by the Franciscans at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The oldest architectural structure in Opole comes from this period: the presbytery of the church. Of the Holy Trinity, commonly called the Franciscan church. The temple and monastery are located in the very center of the city - on the banks of the Młynówka, in the vicinity of the Opole market. Church, acquired in 1820 by Protestants, since 1945 is once again the Catholic Church. From the outside, the church's body combines Gothic elements with the results of the Baroque reconstruction of the roof and tower. Interior, initially basilica, now has a hall, three naves. Tower from the late fifteenth century superstructure was in neo-baroque style in 1902. A kind of liaison between the church and the monastery is the chapel of St. Anna, also called Piast. Built around 1309, the pearl of Silesian Gothic architecture was founded by the Piasts as a tomb chapel. After the fire in the second half of the 15th century, the wooden ceiling was replaced with an effective three-span stellar vault. In the keystone, in the middle of the vault, there is a golden eagle with a crown on a blue field - the coat of arms of the Opole-Racibórz principality. The walls of the chapel are decorated with frescoes. Located on the main wall of the chapel altar-triptych depicts St. Anna with the founder of the monastery Władysław I and the founder of Jasna Góra Władysław III Opolczyk and Saint. And St. Barbara, Hedwig of Silesia - the wife of Henry the Bearded. The chapel is also a mausoleum of the Opole Piasts with carved, full-plastic tombstones from 1378-1382 Bolek I, Bolek II and Bolek III and Duchess Anna Oświęcimska. There are also tombstones of other princes. Underground chapel is unfortunately not open to the public. However, you can visit - after reporting on the monastery gate - the crypt under the main altar, where rests, among others, the remains of eight princes and five princesses, including the granddaughter of Władysław Łokietek - Elżbieta There is also a valuable 14th-century polychrome depicting the crucifixion scene - the oldest of the wall paintings preserved in Upper Silesia. In the same church deserves attention, among others, choir with regency - baroque organ prospectus, made in Leipzig in the second half of the 18th century. In the prospectus appear sculpture of David, the Queen of Sheba and playing angels. The chapels of: Our Lady of Częstochowa, the Blessed Sacrament, Crucifixion and the chapel now called the Chapel of St. Maximilian Kolbe. Fragments of 15th-century frescoes were discovered there during conservation. The cloisters of the two-winged monastery gathered a Gothic and Baroque sacred sculpture and frescoes removed from the walls of the chapel of St. Anna during one of the conversions. Before the building is a statue of St. John of Nepomuk from the beginning of the eighteenth century.