It is built of brick in Gothic bond. The tower has five storeys. In 1772, after a fire, a hexagonal spire was erected, crowned with a ball and a simple cross. Adjoining the tower is the three-aisled body of the church with buttresses. On the north side there are two annexes. On the south side there are also two annexes; the eastern one was once a private chapel.
Inside, the church has three aisles. The central nave has star vaults. The side aisles are lower and have ornamental vaults.
Details of the eastern gable of Friedland Church.
The altar with its wood carving was made in 1668. The richly decorated pulpit dates from 1662. Two carved confessionals were made in 1697–1698. Three bells, from 1495, 1452 and 1710.
After the Second World War the church fell to the victors completely intact, but in 1948 it was looted in a single night. In 1959 the church was measured and placed on the state register as an architectural monument. In 1961 it was surveyed again, and on 14 October 1961 it was handed over to the district consumer cooperative for use as a warehouse.
The lack of timely repairs caused some of the roof tiles to fall off. On the north side the masonry began to crumble. The upper part of the wall near the annex was in a dangerous condition. In 1986 the local authorities decided to carry out repairs. When the ball on the tower spire was examined, documents and coins were found inside; they were handed over to the local museum.
At the beginning of the 1990s the church was handed over to the Orthodox Church.
In the course of the ongoing repairs the stone reliefs of saints were removed from the eastern gable. In 2005 the Orthodox Church of the Holy Great Martyr George the Victorious was consecrated by Metropolitan Kirill of Smolensk and Kaliningrad. On 23 March 2007, by a resolution of the Government of the Kaliningrad Region, the building was granted the status of a cultural heritage site of regional significance.
Photos: Mikhail Ogorodnikov (2015, 1 and 5), Bildarchiv Ostpreußen, bildarchiv-ostpreussen.de
Translated from Russian with the help of AI (Claude, Anthropic), October 2026.
