Advent house
Advent House or Advent Chapel is the name of a church or chapel building of the Free Church of the Seventh-day Adventists, which is still common in German-speaking countries .
Like most sacred buildings of the Adventists in Europe, Advent houses are usually very simple, both in terms of construction and interior decoration. Church towers or even bell towers are rare to find. Only a cross without a body as a symbol for the death of Jesus Christ on the cross is usually attached in the building, often also outside.
In the design of the chapel of the Friedensau Theological College , which was built in 1902 and is one of the oldest Advent chapels in Germany, the use of any cross symbol was deliberately avoided. Instead, there is a rose window with a diameter of seven meters on the front , in the center of which a Christ monogram is expressively integrated. The builders wanted to pick up on a tradition that is even older than that of the cross symbolism .
In Freiburg im Breisgau and Görlitz, for example, the Adventist congregations use traditional churches as places of worship that have been taken over by other denominations.
In Austria only the largest parishes in Vienna , Salzburg and Innsbruck are known as Advent houses. The Austrian Advent house par excellence is the building on Nußdorfer Strasse in Vienna, whose large community hall was originally a theater. In Switzerland, the parish hall in Basel on Rümelinbachweg is known as the Advent house.
Since there is no baptism of children in Adventist congregations , but rather a baptism of young people and adults by immersion, many Advent houses have integrated a large baptismal font in the building. It is usually embedded in the floor, at the front under or next to the communion table , but is usually covered inconspicuously.