Polski 
Ostrów Tumski in Wrocław – sightseeing tour
The oldest buildings on Ostrów Tumski are the Late Romanesque Church of St. Idzi from the early 13th century and St. Martin’s Church, a remnant of the princely castle of the Silesian Piasts from the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries.
The Cathedral of St. St. John the Baptist Cathedral was built in the Gothic style on the site where smaller churches had previously stood. In the spring of 1945, during the fighting for Festung Breslau, the cathedral was destroyed. Its reconstruction took many years. Today the temple serves as the “mother of churches” of Lower Silesia. A few years ago, the silver altar, founded by Bishop Andreas Jerin in 1591, returned to its place. Its construction cost 10 thousand thalers.
The altar in 1945 was dismantled and hidden from the advancing Red Army. Only a few years ago it turned out that quite a few of its elements had survived in the cathedral treasury. As of December 2019, it can be admired again. Interesting fact: among the figures in one of the paintings, the image of the founder Andreas Jerin was fixed. His face can also be seen on the medallion, on the altar and on the bust in the chancel of the temple.
History of the Archcathedral of St. John the Baptist in Wroclaw
The richly decorated temple on Ostrów Tumski is an important point on the tourist map of Wroclaw. Worth seeing here are the chapels and tombstones of Silesian rulers and clergy. The ornament of the cathedral is the Mannerist altar funded by Archbishop Andreas Jerin.
The Archcathedral of St. John the Baptist was built in the Gothic style on the site where smaller churches had previously stood. According to historians, the current building is the fourth in this location, which was built at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries.
The cathedral has been expanded and rebuilt several times. In a fire in 1540, the roof, bells and tower helmet were destroyed, which was rebuilt in Renaissance style. Another expansion of the temple took place after the war with the Swedes in the first half of the 17th century.
Later in the same century, the body of the building was enlarged by Baroque chapels (funded by successive bishops and administrators of the temple): Blessed Sacrament, St. Elizabeth’s, the Electoral Corpus Christi and the Chapel of the Dead. There are as many as 21 chapels in the cathedral itself.
The ornament of the temple is the silver altar of Bishop Andreas Jerin from 1591. Its construction cost 10 thousand thalers, which was the cost of a medium-sized city at the time.
In the centuries that followed, the temple saw an increase in decorations appropriate to the era. In the 19th century, the western facade, including the entrance, was redesigned in a neo-Gothic style
During the siege of Festung Breslau in the spring of 1945, the church was 70 percent destroyed: the vaults of the nave, the roof, the helmets of the towers, the organ and most of the paintings, among others, were ruined.
The reconstruction that made the temple usable lasted until 1951, but new helmets on the towers were not installed until the 1990s.
