Alter Kirchsteig Wehrsdorf - Hainspach/ Lipova

As part of a project funded by the Neisse Euroregion, the Wehrsdorf Heimatfreunde interest group has initiated the revitalization of the "old church path" to Hainspach in addition to bilingual information boards in the village.
The parish of Wehrsdorf was a parish of Hainspach until around 1620. The settlement and sovereignty relationships of Upper Lusatia and Bohemia were particularly closely interwoven until the Thirty Years' War.
Ecclesiastical and state borders and cross-regional administrative structures changed frequently over the centuries. This led to a wide variety of overlapping sovereign interests.
This historical background explains why people chose to travel further to Hainspach for church matters rather than to nearby Sohland or Steinigtwolmsdorf. It was only with the Counter-Reformation in Bohemia, during the Thirty Years' War (1618-1648), that this route lost its original significance, as this church remained Catholic and the Reformation gained a foothold in Saxony. Many Bohemian exiles left their homeland (mostly) for religious reasons, settled near the border on the Saxon side and also helped the village of Wehrsdorf to grow. The Protestant inhabitants of Wehrsdorf then went to church in Sohland until their own church was built in 1725.

About 2/3 of this easily accessible path is identical to the old map material. On the Bohemian side, it has disappeared due to the merging of agricultural land in the corridor. As compensation, there is a direct connection via the newly planted, beautiful maple avenue, which leads directly to the border with Saxony near the end of the village in the direction of Röhrsdorf / Lisci. The now well-marked, cleared footpath from Hainspach to Wehrsdorf can be easily completed in an hour. It encourages you to take a closer look at the local history.