Twardocice , German ''Harpersdorf'', is a village in the administrative district of

Gmina Pielgrzymka __NOTOC__ Gmina Pielgrzymka is a rural gmina (administrative district) in Złotoryja County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in south-western Poland. Its seat is the village of Pielgrzymka, which lies approximately west of Złotoryja, and west of th ...

, within

Złotoryja County __NOTOC__ Złotoryja County ( pl, powiat złotoryjski) is a unit of territorial administration and local government (powiat) in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, south-western Poland. It came into being on January 1, 1999, as a result of the Polish loca ...

Lower Silesian Voivodeship Lower Silesian Voivodeship, or Lower Silesia Province, in southwestern Poland, is one of the 16 voivodeships (provinces) into which Poland is divided. The voivodeship was created on 1 January 1999 out of the former Wrocław, Legnica, Wałbrz ...

, in south-western Poland. It lies approximately south-west of Pielgrzymka, west of

Złotoryja Złotoryja (; german: Goldberg, ; Latin: ''Aureus Mons'', ''Aurum'') is a historic town in Lower Silesian Voivodeship in southwestern Poland, the administrative seat of Złotoryja County, and of the smaller Gmina Złotoryja. Having been granted t ...

, and west of the regional capital

Wrocław Wrocław (; german: Breslau, or . ; Silesian German: ''Brassel'') is a city in southwestern Poland and the largest city in the historical region of Silesia. It lies on the banks of the River Oder in the Silesian Lowlands of Central Europe, rou ...

History

From 1521 on Harpersdorf, since 1945 Twardocice, was part of the Habsburg province of Silesia, becoming a Prussian province in 1742, and a province in the German Empire from 1871 on. Twardocice was mentioned for the first time in 1206. From the 16th to the early 18th century, it was the home of the

Schwenkfelder The Schwenkfelder Church () is a small American Christian body rooted in the 16th-century Protestant Reformation teachings of Caspar Schwenkfeld von Ossig (1489–1561). History Although followers have held the teachings of Schwenckfeld since ...

religious sect, which opposed the dominant

lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

local government. The Viehweg Monument, built in 1863 and rededicated after 2003 after restoration, commemorates Schwenkfelders who were buried in the cattle paths (a sign of disgrace) in the area. and the surrounding villages.

Horst Weigelt Horst Weigelt (born 1934 in Liegnitz) is a German Protestant theologian. From 1975 to 2002 he was Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology at the Otto Friedrich University of Bamberg. His research focuses on the Reformation, Pietism and Enli ...

: ''Zinzendorf und die Schwenckfelder.'' In: Martin Brecht / Paul Peucker (Hrsg.): ''Neue Aspekte der Zinzendorf-Forschung.'' (= ''Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Pietismus.'' Band 47) Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, Göttingen 2006, , S. 64–83. In 1826, the last Silesian

in Harpersdorf died, the farmer Melchior Dorn. After the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

the whole, German speaking and religious

Lutheran Lutheranism is one of the largest branches of Protestantism, identifying primarily with the theology of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German monk and reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practice of the Catholic Church launched th ...

, population was expelled from the village and replaced by

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

Poles.

References

Twardocice {{Złotoryja-geo-stub