Protestant Church, Former Saint-Erhard Chapel

Ensisheim was the former seat of the Habsburg Regency until the end of the Thirty Years' War, playing an administrative, fiscal, judicial, and defensive role. The town also became a stronghold of the Counter-Reformation from 1550, firmly opposing Protestant ideas and suppressing their manifestations. In 1579, a college was established, entrusted to the Jesuits in 1615. After their departure in 1764, the institution was transformed into a central prison, and a Protestant chaplain was appointed there in 1841. From 1875, Protestants were allowed to hold services for inmates, and a distinct service was officially established on July 1, 1880, under a status of tolerance rather than shared rights. The Jesuit chapel, an 18th-century Baroque style building, features a façade adorned with pilasters and niches, with a door providing access to the Protestant place of worship. Long accessible only through the prison, the chapel was redesigned in 1940 with a direct entrance from the street, allowing the first service in this new space to be held on October 4, 1942. Today, this flat-roofed chapel, integrated into the former penitentiary, remains an emblematic Protestant place of worship.