Alexander Nevsky Memorial Church (Potsdam)
The Russian Orthodox Alexander Nevsky Memorial Church on Kapellenberg in northern Potsdam was built by order of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III. Erected between 1826 and 1829 for the soldiers of the choir of the Russian colony Alexandrowka , who came from Russia . As a sign of the close relationship between Prussia and Russia, a sacred building in the old Russian architectural style was created based on designs by the St. Petersburg court architect Vasily Petrowitsch Stassow , to whom Karl Friedrich Schinkel added stylistic elements of the classicist architecture. In memory of Tsar Alexander I , who died in 1825 , the church was named after his patron saint, Russian prince Alexander Yaroslavich Newski, who was canonized in the 16th century .
The Alexander Nevsky Memorial Church is the oldest Russian Orthodox church building in Western Europe modeled on old Russian architecture and an example of early Russian historicism . As part of the colony Alexandrowka the church stands as since 1999 a World Heritage Site under the protection of UNESCO .
history
With the construction of the Alexandrowka colony, a place of worship was required for the residents of Orthodox faith from Russia. Peter Joseph Lenné was commissioned to design the area in 1826 and drafted plans on which he suggested the northern edge of the Alexandrowka as a location or as a possible variant in the center of the settlement, at the intersection of the path system laid out as a St. Andrew's cross . Friedrich Wilhelm III. however, wanted an elevated location, so that the sacred building was finally built on the Minenberg, which borders the colony to the north and renamed Alexanderberg, today's Kapellenberg. For the church building, which was planned in the old Russian architectural style, design variants came from the court building department in Saint Petersburg in May 1826. The drawing used, which is no longer preserved, corresponded to a scaled-down copy of the Kyiv Desjatin Church , which was designed by court architect Vasily Petrovich Stasov and is now destroyed . On the day of remembrance for Alexander Nevsky, the foundation stone was laid according to the Gregorian calendar in September of the same year. The inscription, written in Russian and German, reflects the close family and political friendship between the courts:
- In 1826, on September 11, the King of Prussia Friedrich Wilhelm was in acquisitions of His Majesty III th remembering the bonds of intimate affection and friendship for the I as a lasting memorial th December 1825 most blessed late Emperor of all the Russias Alexander Pavlovich Majesty the Foundation stone for the building of a church for the apostolic, oriental-catholic faith, under the name of Saint Alexander Newsky, in the congregation donated by the King's Majesty from the Russian Singing Corps of the I ten Guard Regiment on foot, by the General Major von Alvensleben , Commander of the 2 th Guards Division set, and from the imperial Russian Gesandtschafts-Probst John Tschudowsky solemnly inaugurated.
According to tradition, the foundation stone was set in the place provided for the altar on the east side. However, due to the poor condition of the subsoil, the church had to be built a few meters further east, so that today it is located under the entrance on the west side.
As with the construction of the Nikolskoe blockhouse and the Alexandrowka colony, Capitaine Adolf Snethlage, commander of the Berlin Guard Pioneer Department, was given the job of construction management. He was assisted by Lieutenant Engineer Johann Hermann von Motz. Soldiers carried out the work, as did craftsmen from Potsdam, such as master mason August Forck, painter Albert Ludwig Trippel and master mason Johann Wilhelm Blankenhorn. After the shell of the interior had been completed in 1827, design drafts worked out by Russian artists came early in 1828. Karl Friedrich Schinkel, who was called in for the assessment, made changes and added decorative forms of classicism to the Byzantine sacred art. The first service took place on June 10, 1829 in the presence of the Tsar couple Nikolaus I and his wife Alexandra Fjodorovna , who were in Prussia on the occasion of the marriage of Prince Wilhelm to Augusta von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach . The actual consecration by the chaplain of the Russian embassy in Berlin, Johannes Borissowitsch Tschudowski, did not take place until two months later on the day of the national saint's commemoration and three years after the laying of the foundation stone on September 11, 1829 in the presence of the Prussian royal family and members of the court, the evangelical bishop Rulemann Friedrich Eylert , the commander of the I. Guards regiment on foot Karl von Prittwitz , high representative of the city of Potsdam and the ambassador of the Tsar's court in Prussia. In addition to the residents of the Alexandrowka colony present, the royal body coachman and overseer of the blockhouse Nikolskoe Ivan Bockow , who also belonged to the Russian Orthodox parish, was also present.
In the following year, Schinkel received the order to provide the small cemetery surrounding the church with a fence. In March 1830 he made a design for a four-foot-high cast iron grille with four entrances and sandstone pillars. Schinkel cited the old Russian architectural style of the onion hoods in the onion-shaped pillar crown that master stonemason Forck made. The grille comes from the Berlin iron foundry Egells & Woderb. The priests, like the first cleric Chudovsky, found their final resting place in the cemetery, along with others who have rendered outstanding services to the church. The inhabitants of the colony were not buried here, but found their final resting place in the old cemetery in Potsdam, whose graves are no longer preserved today.
architecture
The architectural design of the Alexander Nevsky Memorial Church is a symbiosis of the traditional old Russian architectural style, which emerged from Byzantine architecture, with elements of classicism, which can be seen on the exterior in the facade structure through pilaster strips and decorative friezes as well as on semicircular windows in the attic . The revival of old architecture typical of the country reflects the spirit of the romantic era, which saw its roots in the customs of the romanticized Middle Ages. As a sign of the close friendly relations between Prussia and Russia, the royal and tsarist courts exchanged architectural designs. After completion of the Potsdam Alexander Nevsky Memorial Church Karl Friedrich Schinkel was commissioned by Nicholas I the counterpart in neo-Gothic style for the landscape park Alexandria in Peterhof Palace . He sent the drawings of the Alexander Nevsky Chapel to Saint Petersburg in 1831. In the same year, the architect Adam Menelaws began the work that Josef Charlemagne carried out after his death.
Exterior design
The architecture of the Alexander Nevsky Memorial Church corresponds to a cross- domed church resting on four pillars . The inner edge length of the 73 centimeter thick, equally long walls is 9.30 meters. Five reels with onion hoods crown the building cube, whose 18.40 meter high central dome is framed by four smaller ones at the corners of the building. With the exception of the east facade, which is arched outwards in a semicircle by the apse , the other three sides are designed the same. Pilaster strips divide the wall surfaces vertically into three fields. An ornamented cornice band runs horizontally in the central wall area and an unadorned cornice below the attic around the building. Five steps lead to pointed arched keel arch portals with lamellar doors in the middle fields. Up to the height of the ornamented cornice band , they are flanked by narrow, fluted columns, the palm-leaf capitals of which fit into the band. The frame follows the ogival portal shape and forms the keel arch , also known as the "donkey's back". This pointed arch form, which comes from the Gothic , has been part of the defining portal design on Moscow church buildings since the beginning of the 15th century. The tips of the keel arches are crowned by a gold-plated hemisphere and a Greek cross. The four-pass-shaped niches set into the wall above were decorated with icons on lava tablets on the instructions of Friedrich Wilhelm IV . They come from the workshop of the painter August von Kloeber and show Jesus Christ above the entrance portal on the west side , the patron saint of the soldiers Theodorus Stratilates above the north portal and the namesake and patron saint Alexander Nevsky above the south portal . Ornate diamond friezes and Greek crosses in the attic zone are part of the original architectural decoration. Daylight enters the church through high, narrow arched windows in the side facade fields and the apse, as well as through tracery-like decorated semicircular windows in the attic and the upper apse. The tomb of Archpriest Chudovsky is embedded in the outer wall of the apse. In Russian and German language it bears the inscription: Here rests in God the Imperial Russian Gesandschafts-Probst John Tschudowski, born in Russia to Chudovo in Novgorod province the 24 th October 1765, died in Berlin the 6 th October 1838. After the founding of the colony Alexandrowka was the inauguration of this chapel through him, just as he first administered the spiritual office in it .
The five cylinder-shaped reels were fitted with hoods in the traditional Russian onion shape, which were originally covered with tinplate and later with copper sheet. They are crowned with spheres and Latin crosses, which were subsequently gilded between 1893 and 1895. The tambour of the central main dome is encircled by an ornamented frieze and a blind arch gallery , which is pierced by eight windows. Daylight also falls through them into the church space, which is raised by the drum. The four smaller reels at the corners, which are not spatially related to the interior, surround windowless blind arch galleries. The bells found their place in the two corner drums on the west side. On the pink lime plaster of the church building, the pilasters, cornices, blind arcades and ornaments are additionally emphasized by their white paint.
Jesus Christ. Icon on the west side.
Alexander Nevsky. Icon on the south side.
Theodorus Stratilates. Icon on the north side.
Interior design
On the square floor plan of the interior, the position of the columns results in a Greek cross. Belt arches that connect them to each other rest on them . In the crossing , the drum and dome of the central tower open up. Schinkel renounced the wall painting with pictorial representations, which is rich in Russian church tradition. In order to give the room simplicity and tranquility , he had the wall surfaces painted a light green, the columns and belt arches a muted white , and a surrounding ornamental frieze each in the base and central wall area. In front of the east apse, a wooden picture wall, the iconostasis , separates the chancel (bema) from the community room (naos), which can accommodate around 50 people. Since the believers in Orthodox churches take part in the service standing, there are no seats. Only the sick and the weak are allowed to sit down.
The richly decorated iconostasis dominates the interior of the church. It extends from the south-facing wall to the north-facing wall and is raised by three steps from the rest of the church by a flat platform, the sola. In terms of cultural history, it developed from the early Christian choir screen of Catholic church buildings, in which the bars decorated with pictures by believers separated the sanctuary from the community room. The iconostasis of the Alexander Nevsky Memorial Church is designed in the manner of a triumphal arch with a stepped gable topped by a gilded Latin cross. The center of the gable shows a painting of the Lord's Supper flanked by Greek crosses . The central, double-winged royal door leads to the chancel behind, the sanctuary. It is covered by a curtain on the altar side. The door and the curtain are closed or open following the Russian Orthodox liturgy and only remain open during the entire Easter week. Then a picture of the Ascension of Christ becomes visible behind the altar . Two side doors, which are common in iconostases, are missing here. Next to the altar is the prosthesis on the left, the area in which the gifts for the Eucharistic celebration ( divine liturgy ) are prepared on an arming table, and on the right the diaconal, which is used to store liturgical implements and vestments.
The oil paintings of the iconostasis were created by Russian artists in 1828/29 and show the Annunciation on the royal door , framed by gilded vines, in the upper fields and half-length portraits of the four evangelists Matthew , Mark , Luke and John in the lower part . On the left of the door, Mary is shown with the baby Jesus and on the right, Jesus Christ. Karl Friedrich Schinkel took part in the design of the iconostasis and decorated it with classicist decorative shapes. Instead of the originally planned half-columns , he used fluted pilasters with capitals that indicate the spiral-shaped curls of the Ionic order , angel heads and acanthus friezes. Above the royal door , he framed the dove, the symbol of the Holy Spirit , surrounded by a wreath of rays with a cloud ring and angel heads , with a semicircular wreath of palmettes , suggesting a round arched portal that extends to the gable and is flanked by two floating angels. All decorative forms are gold-plated on a white background.
Immediately in front of the Royal Door is the Ambon . In this area, which is used for the preaching , the lectern is located during the scriptures. In front of the east pillars of the crossing, the Ambon is flanked by a procession flag from the time the church was built. The numerous icons on the walls are largely painted over the entire surface and show two-dimensional representations of saints on a shiny gold background, the symbol of light. Some are clad in silver oklat , an artisanal driving work that only leaves the painted faces and hands free. The community owes the icons, like the entire inventory, donations from Saint Petersburg and the Moscow Patriarchate as well as Tsarina Alexandra Fyodorovna. The liturgical implements from the early days are still in use today. Russian medals and Prussian war memorials from the Wars of Liberation from 1813 to 1815, which are displayed on the right side wall of the iconostasis, commemorate the singer-soldiers .
Administration and spiritual guidance
Until 1914 the Russian Orthodox parish was looked after by priests from the Berlin legation. After the First World War, the division of the Russian Church began in 1921 at the “Karlowitz Synod” (see Russian Orthodox Church Abroad ), whereby the connection to the Moscow mother church was prohibited. The Alexandrowka colony passed into the administration of the Prussian state on April 1, 1927. Of the first Russian settlers, only four descendants lived in the houses that retained their right of inheritance to the property during the Nazi era . In 1934, the church was subordinated to the Protestant Kaiserin-Auguste-Victoria-Gedächtniskirche, now the Pentecostal Church . After the Second World War, which the church building survived unscathed, soldiers of the Red Army moved into the houses of Alexandrowka until 1949 and the parish was again placed under the diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church in Berlin, which is part of the Moscow Patriarchate. With Archpriest Nikolai Markewitsch she received for the first time constant spiritual care until his death in 1968. For eighteen years only sporadic services were held by clergymen of the Exarchate until the congregation received an archpriest who was permanently present on October 6, 1986 with Anatoly Koljada, today it looks after around 1000 Orthodox believers. Funding is mainly done through voluntary membership fees, as no church tax is levied in the Orthodox Church.
The house "Russian Colony 14"
A few meters north of the church, Capitain Snethlage built the fourteenth colony house for the church overseer with the soldiers of the Guards Pioneer Department. It was later also called the " Royal Country House " because Friedrich Wilhelm III. had a simple tea room set up on the first floor. The two-story, very spacious house, designed in the so-called “colorful manner”, was completed in February 1827. It differs from the rest of the Alexandrowka colony houses, clad with round planks, which simulate a block construction, by the smooth, originally colored board cladding, which was later painted gray. The window frames, doors and carvings were previously kept white and the brightly painted shutters represented motifs from Russian folklore. A wooden stable was built next to the house, in which the king's unstretched horses could be looked after. Friedrich Wilhelm III brought the draft. 1818 from Russia, where the French architect Auguste de Montferrand planned houses in this style for an unrealized park village near Tsarskoe Selo .
The tea room of Friedrich Wilhelm III. was furnished with contemporary furniture in the Biedermeier style. A samovar from Tula brought a Russian atmosphere into the room and a tea service painted with folk scenes from the Imperial Porcelain Manufactory Lomonossow , which Nikolaus I gave his father-in-law Friedrich Wilhelm III. gave. Another tea and table service from the Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Berlin was available to serve the guests at lunch . After an Orthodox service in the church, Friedrich Wilhelm III. on September 26, 1839 for the last time in the tea room. During his visits, the choir from the colony stood in front of the house and entertained the king with melodies from his Russian homeland. In 1854, in memory of Alexander I, Friedrich Wilhelm IV had a small walnut obelisk with the portrait medallion of the tsar set up in the room. However, he rarely used the tea room.
The first overseer and resident of the house at the time of Friedrich Wilhelm III. was Kondrati Yermolajewitsch Tarnowski, a former lackey of the Russian court and son of a clergyman. In addition to his duties as an overseer, he also performed the office of an auxiliary church servant. After his death in March 1853, Hermann Ferdinand Sieber, a former musician in the I. Guards Regiment, was given the job and apartment until his death and was replaced in 1897 by the former military musician Franz Dessow. Between 1930 and 1945 there were frequent tenant changes until the Russian city commander of Potsdam, Colonel Andrej Werin, rented the house to pastor Theodor Giljawsky in November that year after it had been transferred from the city's property to the Russian Orthodox Church in Potsdam . Archpriest Nikolai Markevich lived there from 1949 to 1968. Afterwards it stood empty for years and was only used occasionally to accommodate Polish restorers. In 1986 Archpriest Anatoly Koljada moved into the house with his family, who are still tenants today.
literature
- Karl-Heinz Otto, Anatolij Koljada: Alexandrowka and the Alexander Newski Memorial Church . 1st edition. Edition Märkische Travel Pictures, Potsdam 2004, ISBN 3-934232-44-2 .
- Kremer Foundation (ed.): Museum Alexandrowka . Potsdam 2005, ISBN 3-9809706-1-2 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ On behalf of the Military History Research Office and the Professorship for Military History at the University of Potsdam ed. : Martin abdomen, Agnes Baumert, Tobias Büloff Potsdamer Ge h history. God's Houses , p. 82.
- ^ Foundation Prussian Palaces and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg: Power and Friendship 1800–1860 Berlin – St. Petersburg , p. 191
- ↑ In the Russian Orthodox Church, the day of remembrance according to the Julian calendar is November 14th, the day of death of Alexander Nevsky.
- ↑ Hans-Christian Diedrich: The Russian Orthodox Alexander Newski Church in Potsdam and its community , in: Herbergen der Christenheit , Vol. XIV, Berlin 1983/84.
- ↑ Also Iwan Bokoff, actually Jewgeni Filipowitsch Barchatow. Cf. Otto, Koljada: Alexandrowka […] , p. 7. Cf. Museum Alexandrowka, p. 80.
- ↑ a b Otto, Koljada: Alexandrowka […] , p. 23.
- ↑ Otto, Koljada: Alexandrowka […] , p. 25.
- ^ Museum Alexandrowka, p. 95.
- ^ Museum Alexandrowka, p. 75.
Coordinates: 52 ° 24 '54.8 " N , 13 ° 3' 27.3" E