Kościól w częściowej ruinie

Evangelical church in Żeliszów - unused since 1945 evangelical church, a monument of the early classical period. It is located on the southwestern edge of Żeliszów in Bolesławiec county.

The church was built according to a design attributed to the architect Carl Gotthard Langhans, the designer of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, among others. Some art historians, however, attribute it to the builder Grundmann.

The church was built between 1796 and 1797 on an ellipse plan of approximately 20x30 meters. In 1872 a bell tower made of sandstone from Boles³awiec was added to the church from the southeast according to a project by local architect Peter Gansel.

The facades of the church are distinguished by their lack of architectural decoration. The tiled roof is adapted to the elliptical shape of the building. The richly decorated single space interior is surrounded by wooden galleries with an elliptical floor plan and an ornamentless dome supported by round columns on the galleries. The two stories of the gallery are accessible by a single flight of stairs with full wooden balustrades.

The church was used by the local Evangelical community until 1945, while the Catholic community used the nearby St. John of Nepomuk Church. After German inhabitants left, the church remained in good condition, but was not used as intended. At first it was used as a sheepfold, then it deteriorated and turned into a ruin. It lost its altar, organ, pews, chandeliers, local residents treated the church as a source of building materials. When the tent roof of the tower leaned over, it collapsed. Part of the roof truss collapsed and the church was without protection from rain and snow. The church was entered on the list of monuments of Lower Silesia province only on December 12, 2005 under the number 669/A/05.

The first protection of the ruined church was the bricking up of the holes left by the torn out window frames.

Next to the church there is an abandoned Evangelical cemetery with few tombstones left.

On July 17, 2013 the Warsaw-based foundation "Twoje Dziedzictwo" took over the church together with the cemetery from the municipality and began efforts to raise funds for the restoration of the deteriorating monument. On January 31, 2014, it received assistance from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage in the amount of 200,000 PLN, which enabled the start of reconstruction works on June 24, 2014. Since August 2014, work has been underway to rebuild the collapsed roof truss and cover the roof with red plain tiles.

By 2018, work had been done to protect the building from further deterioration. The works are progressing as funds are obtained from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, the Marshal's Office of the Lower Silesian Province and private donors.

The vaulted wooden structure has been renovated except for the area of the former organ, where the damaged structure needs to be reconstructed from the floor level upwards. The renovation of the building's internal support structure is scheduled to be completed by October 2018.

The restoration remains to be completed with new door and window woodwork, restoration of the emporium balustrades, repair of the tower ceilings and stair runs, and restoration of the tower helmet.