Église de la Transfiguration (Nice)

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The Église de la Transfiguration ( Church of the Transfiguration of the Lord ) is a Protestant church in Nice in the south of France . The Greek-style church building, inaugurated on June 3, 1866, is located at 4 rue Melchior de Vogüé, near Boulevard Victor-Hugo .

history

Since the middle of the 19th century Nice, which at that time still belonged to the Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont , had a German-speaking Protestant community. Pastor Philipp Friedrich Mader , who was sent by the Basel Mission to provide pastoral care to German vacationers, celebrated the first German-language church services in what was then the Waldensian Church on the first of Advent in 1856 . In the following year, the Germans and Swiss formed their own parish in Nice, which met in a private house. Because the number of members continued to grow with the influx of German merchants and artists, the construction of a separate church was planned from 1860 onwards. After collecting the funds and purchasing a piece of land, the foundation stone was laid on April 19, 1865. The community itself raised 40,000 francs from the total construction costs of around 200,000 francs. The Prussian King Wilhelm I donated 16,000 francs . Other donations came from other German princes, church authorities and Gustav Adolf associations. On the initiative of Napoleon III. the French state also contributed 10,000 francs to the construction.

The inauguration took place on June 3, 1866; As a friendly gesture towards the Lutheran congregation, the city of Nice named the street section on which the church was located, Rue d'Augsbourg . In the same year the parish, which had been under the Lutheran consistory in Paris since the transition of the county of Nice to France in 1860 , received state recognition as an independent parish. After the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 Mader endeavored to join the community to a German regional church , but was unsuccessful. After the separation of church and state in 1905, the community dissolved its relationship with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of France .

After the outbreak of World War I , the church and rectory were confiscated as enemy property. Pastor Mader went to Italy, where he died in 1917; the congregation dissolved. After the end of the war, the church was taken over by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of France and renamed the Église de la Transfiguration . From 1919 to 1927 Frank Wheatcroft worked as a pastor and was able to build up a French and English-speaking congregation. It was not until the 1950s that the Alsatian pastor Rosenstiel held regular German church services again, and the Germans were given a place on the parish church council.

Church building

The plans for the construction of the church were drawn up by the Russian architect André Lavezzari from St. Petersburg. It had 300 seats. Most of the furniture came from the old Anglican church, whose congregation also moved into a new church building.

Todays use

The German Evangelical Church in Nice, which was founded in 2011 as an EKD foreign congregation, has been using the building for its church services since 2018 . In addition, the parishes from Madagascar and Finland come together in the Église de la Transfiguration .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Binder: Philipp Friedrich Mader (1832-1917). Preacher and pastor for servants and majesties in Nice on the French Riviera (= forgotten theologians; 5). Lit, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-8258-9833-5 , p. 20; Myriam A. Orban: Troubles dans les Églises Évangéliques des Alpes Maritimes de l'annexion à la séparation. 2: Les Eglises protestantes germanophones. ( PDF file on the Nice Protestant parish website (here you will also find further information on the history of the parish).
  2. ^ Foreword in: Ph. Fr. Mader: Eight sermons held in the German Evangelical Church in Nice . Basel 1862.
  3. ↑ Hans Binder: Philipp Friedrich Mader (1832-1917). Preacher and pastor for servants and majesties in Nice on the French Riviera (= forgotten theologians; 5). Lit, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-8258-9833-5 , p. 61.
  4. ^ Mader: The German Evangelical Church AC in Nice and the Lutheran Consistory in Paris . [Nice 1907], p. 26.
  5. ↑ Hans Binder: Philipp Friedrich Mader (1832-1917). Preacher and pastor for servants and majesties in Nice on the French Riviera (= forgotten theologians; 5). Lit, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-8258-9833-5 , p. 63.
  6. ↑ Hans Binder: Philipp Friedrich Mader (1832-1917). Preacher and pastor for servants and majesties in Nice on the French Riviera (= forgotten theologians; 5). Lit, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-8258-9833-5 , p. 61.63.
  7. ↑ Congregational Letter July – September 2018 of the German Evangelical Church in Nice , p. 4 f.

Coordinates: 43 ° 42 ′ 1.7 "  N , 7 ° 15 ′ 56.3"  E