Zeestow village church
| Autobahnkirche Zeestow (Dorfkirche Zeestow) |
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 Northeast view |
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| Construction year: | 1847-1850 |
| Inauguration: | 1850 Re-inauguration: June 22, 2014 |
| Style elements : | Brick church |
| Client: | Evangelical parish of Zeestow ( ecclesiastical province of Brandenburg , Church of the Old Prussian Union ) |
| Location: | 52 ° 34 '17.1 " N , 12 ° 57' 33.5" E |
| Address: | Wustermarker Strasse 16, OT. Zeestow Brieselang Brandenburg , Germany |
| Purpose: | Evangelical Autobahn Church |
| Parish: | Evangelical Parish Office Paul-Mewes-Damm 73 14656 Brieselang Tel. 033232/41598 |
| Regional Church : | Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia |
| Website: | www.autobahnkirche-zeestow.de |
The village church Zeestow (also motorway church Zeestow ) in Zeestow in the municipality of Brieselang is a brick building built in 1850 , which has been the first motorway church on Berliner Ring since 2014 . The church is open to all travelers during the day and, as the 42nd motorway church in Germany, invites you to worship, pray and relax as a “gas station for the soul”. The village church is designated as an architectural monument .
Geographical location
Zeestow is a district of the municipality of Brieselang in the Brandenburg district of Havelland and is located west of Berlin on the federal motorway 10 , the western Berlin ring, between the Werder triangle and the Havelland triangle . The church is a few hundred meters away from the motorway exit 27 (“Brieselang”) and is located on Landesstraße 202, which is called “Wustermarker Straße” in town. There is a rail connection via the Brieselang station on the Berlin-Hamburg Railway with the regional train lines RB 10 (Nauen – Berlin Hbf.) And RB 14 (Nauen – Berlin-Schönefeld Flughafen / Airport-Express).
Church building
A devastating fire in 1847 destroyed a large part of the village of Zeestow, including the parish church. Only modest funds - 1,686 thalers - could be raised for a new building, but by 1850 a new church building was made from bricks that were plastered.
The church tower on the west side is square and indented. The octagonal upper floor has four sound openings to carry out the sound of a bell from 1848. A pointed helmet with a cross crowns the tower.
The nave is provided with a gable roof. There is a cross on the eastern side. In the north and south walls there are four ogival windows, in the east a group of three apses with ogive windows, and in the middle of the gable a round arch window .
The church is accessed through the pointed arched portal on the west side of the tower. The gaze falls on the brick altar , which is covered by a wooden panel. It stands in the arched apse. A wooden cross adorns the altar, the bricks of which have remained unplastered.
In the northeast corner of the nave - to the left of the arch of the apse - is the pulpit, also made of bricks . Your basket is round. The baptismal font has its place in the southeast corner . This is also bricked, the lid made of wood. The altar, pulpit and baptismal font date from the 1960s. Little was preserved of the earlier furnishings during the redesign during this period.
The church has a west gallery that once supported the organ . This was dismantled and can now be heard in the village church in Falkenhagen , a district of Falkensee . It is dated to 1965 and comes from the organ building workshop of Hans-Joachim Schuke in Potsdam .
The church is surrounded by a cemetery where u. a. a tomb of Bredow († 1793) and a high fluted column stump stand. The churchyard has not been used as a burial place since the mid-1960s.
Since the early 1980s, the Zeestow village church was relieved of its role as a place of worship. The community moved to the rectory and the church building was administered by the Falkensee parish. The building threatened to fall into disrepair. There were many plans to save it, but these were repeatedly rejected. Only in 2009, when the church was in an absolutely desolate internal and external condition, emergency safety measures were carried out. This was combined with the intention to restore the church and use it as a motorway church . After all, the village and church are only 800 meters away from the Bundesautobahn 10 , the western Berliner Ring, and there was not yet a motorway church on this.
A detailed utilization and renovation concept was developed for the Zeestow motorway church project and implemented in two phases. The first construction phase - the renovation of the tower with the original tip - was completed in 2012. The second construction phase - the renovation of the nave - was completed in 2014.
The total cost of the construction project on the Zeestow autobahn church is 1 million euros. Funds from the European Union , the Federal Republic of Germany , the State of Brandenburg , the Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia , the Havelland district , the Falkensee parish, the community and the KiBa Foundation , the Mittelbrandenburgische Sparkasse and the Förderverein Autobahnkirche e . V.
The rededication of the building as a place of worship and the use as a motorway church took place on June 22, 2014 by Bishop Markus Dröge , the leading clergyman of the Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia.
The paintings that have found their place in the church are remarkable. There are twelve large-format panels with the title “The Called”, painted by Volker Stelzmann . They represent the Twelve Apostles . On their faces you can see beggars and homeless people whom Stelzmann saw at the Zoo station in West Berlin after his escape from the GDR.
Parish
Zeestow with its village church is a parish that is looked after by the parish in Brieselang . In the 16th century the church is called a parish church, to which the Wernitz branch (today part of Wustermark) belonged. At that time, the von Bredow zu Friesack patrons were also the church patrons. Zeestow remained an independent parish until 1945.
The parish of Zeestow today has around 90 parishioners. The community itself is part of the Falkensee parish in the Potsdam district of the Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia.
The standing next to the church and by the end of the Second World War used as a parsonage building stands since the 1950s as Rüstzeitheim for children and youth camps available. Today the house is open to public and private users. In connection with the construction of a motorway church, the offer of overnight accommodation for motorists is to be examined.
literature
- Rajah Scheepers, utilization concept for the Zeestow motorway church. Berlin, November 2009
- Frank Keil, a gas station for the soul. Report. in: KiBa Aktuell, ed. from the Foundation for the Preservation of Church Monuments in Germany, issue 2/2014, pp. 5-6
Web links
- Brieselang municipality, Zeestow motorway church
- Motorway church Zeestow ( memento from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) near the Falkensee church district
- No. 09150555 in the Brandenburg register of monuments
Individual evidence
- ↑ On the opening of the village church Zeestow as the first motorway church on the Berliner Ring parish of Groß Glienicke, accessed on September 7, 2017