Baptist prayer house in Jever
Coordinates: 53 ° 34 '28.9 " N , 7 ° 53' 50.6" E
The Baptist Prayer House in Jever (also called Baptist Chapel Jever ) was built in 1858 and is one of the oldest Baptist church buildings in Germany. The house of prayer is still used today for worship purposes. It is located outside the historical city center of Jever . The church property is on Elisabethufer 1 in the so-called St. Annen-Vorstadt .
Older than the Jever prayer house of the Baptists are only the prayer house in Felde near Westerstede (built in 1850), the house for worship in Westoverledingen-Ihr (built in 1854) and the Eben Ezer Chapel (built in 1856; today called Köbner's Church ) in Wuppertal - Barmen . The first German Baptist churches in Hamburg (built in 1847) and Berlin (built in 1848) were destroyed during the Second World War.
Building description
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The Baptist church has been rebuilt several times over the course of its 160-year history, and its exterior has also been changed.
The original construction
The prayer house was a simple hall structure. On the long sides there were four single-glazed church windows in the Gothic style. The entrance portal was in the middle of the gable side, flanked on the right and left by two more church windows.
There was also a church window in the top of the gable, but kept smaller than the others. The front was divided by four pillar-like wall projections. Two of them marked the corners of the prayer house, two more highlighted the entrance area. All four wall projections were crowned with battlements that protruded beyond the roof boundary. Similar structural elements can also be found in various Jever private houses that were built during the same period.
In the gable there is still a sandstone plaque that was donated by Johann Ludwig Hinrichs on the occasion of the inauguration of the prayer house and whose inscription gave the church of the Jever Baptists its name. The inscription reads: My house is called a house of prayer for all nations. Isaiah 56.7. Built in the year of Christ 1858.
Based on archive documents of the community, the following picture emerges for the interior of the prayer house: Behind the entrance portal was a small anteroom made of wood. The actual church space comprised around two-thirds of the hall and, according to the number of benches, offered space for around 100 people attending worship services. In the back third of the prayer house there were two multi-purpose rooms, one of which was equipped with a simple kitchen facility. The rooms also served as changing rooms for the baptized persons during baptisms .
The view of the entering visitor fell on a simple cross and a somewhat oversized and raised pulpit . In front of the pulpit were the sacrament table and three chairs. The baptistery, which is typical for Baptist churches, was set into the floor below the sacrament table. During baptismal services, the table was pushed aside and the cover of the baptismal font was removed. To the right and left of the pulpit there was a door that led into the aforementioned rear rooms. A barrel vault closed off the church service room at the top.
In front of the prayer house, where there are parking spaces today, there were two identical residential buildings (area around 40 m²) built at the same time as the church, each with two rooms on the ground floor and two rooms on the top floor. The original intention was for the pastor and the castellan ( sexton ) of the congregation to live here, but this never happened due to various circumstances. The living space was rented privately until the houses were demolished in 1957. The fact that the two houses were built in front of the church and thus blocked the unobstructed view of the prayer house was due to the building regulations of the time: Free church houses of God - like synagogues - were usually only allowed to be built as backyard buildings.
Current condition
After major renovations in 1959 and 1980, the following picture emerges today: The structural elements on the facade were largely removed, the "battlements" removed and the church window in the top of the gable bricked up. A small side extension now serves as the entrance area with an anteroom. The original church door was replaced by a church window. There have also been major changes inside. The pulpit and the Lord's Supper are now on the opposite side. The barrel vault was removed and replaced with a normal ceiling . The baptismal font is still roughly in its original place, but is open. One of the two rear rooms was added to the worship room. In the other rear room there are toilets , a rear exit and a staircase that leads to the upper rooms. These rooms are three group rooms of different sizes and a kitchen.
Bible garden
In 2004 a Bible garden was laid out in the rear area of the prayer house property . It includes around 50 plants that are mentioned in the Bible . The dedication says, among other things: "With our Bible garden we want to remind that God is the creator of all living beings, that we humans owe him thanks and respect and are responsible for the preservation of his creation."
history
The Baptist Congregation Jever (also called Evangelical Free Church Congregation since 1942 ) was constituted under the direction of Johann Gerhard Oncken on August 30, 1840 in Jever with 19 congregation members. Their first domicile was the summer house of a respected Jever merchant. In October of the year it was founded, the small congregation submitted an application to the church council of the Oldenburg Evangelical Lutheran Church to allow the establishment of an Evangelical baptismal congregation in Jever. Attached was the creed of the Evangelical Baptist Churches in America, Great Britain, Hamburg and Jever , drawn up by Johann Ludwig Hinrichs . The application, which was refused, drew the attention of the regional church and state authorities to the young community. Their worship gatherings were banned under threat of fines and / or imprisonment. Children from Baptist families were brought to church by police force and were baptized there by the pastor against their parents' wishes . If they were not prepared to pay the fees set for this , they were seized . At first, an orderly worship life for the community was not possible. The meeting places had to be changed constantly due to persecution . The services took place in private houses, barns and in the open air. Baptisms were carried out at night in the waters of the Wangerland . Nevertheless, the community grew and was able to initiate further church plantings in the Jever area.
A first breakthrough came in the municipality of Felde near Halsbek (today Westerstede ), which was founded by Jever . Here it was above all the elder Frerich Bohlken who, through his numerous petitions to the Grand Duke in Oldenburg, achieved a certain tolerance of the Baptists. As early as 1847 he received permission to build a chapel for the Baptist fields , which also happened in the same year. From that point on, the authorities in Jever also took a more liberal stance. Public invitations to Baptist church services were allowed. At the beginning of the 1850s, the parish decided to build its own church. The implementation had to be postponed, however, because over 30 parishioners decided to emigrate to Illinois and community planting initiatives in Varel and Seefeld (Stadland) (today: Baptist parish in Nordenham ) withdrew further members from Jever. On December 6, 1856, Johann Gerhard Oncken reported in a letter to his American mission partner about a visit to Jever. The community - said Oncken - has grown and the approved building plans are about to be implemented. Beginning of 1858, the reports community elders Anton Friedrich Remmers same addressee, now that the construction of a chapel was approved and hope there would be, nor in 1858 to complete the construction of the prayer house. When Remmers laid the foundation stone of the prayer house on Elisabethufer at the end of January 1858, the Jever congregation had around 80 baptized congregation members (excluding children and friends). Since the community had no corporation rights, the church building was entered in the land register in the name of A. F. Remmers. When he died in 1881, his heirs , who did not belong to the community , refused to hand over the house of prayer. After years of financial disputes, the community bought their prayer house from the community of heirs and, as it were, paid for it for the second time.
The inauguration of the prayer house took place on Sunday, October 24th, 1858. The sermons were given by the founding fathers of the German Baptist movement, Johann Gerhard Oncken and Julius Köbner . Also August Friedrich Wilhelm Haese , who was then about as a missionary to the Jade Bay had been involved in the opening ceremonies. The new church obviously made an impression. On a lithograph by Klusmeier (around 1865), the prayer house, along with the castle, the town church and other buildings, is one of the sights of Jever .
Two more waves of emigration and the pull of the nearby “new” city of Wilhelmshaven caused the number of Jever Baptists to melt away. In 1914 the congregation only had four members and a few friends who gathered in the prayer house for worship. Serious thought was given to closing the church, but this was prevented by the annexation of the Jeveraner to the flourishing Baptist congregation in Wilhelmshaven. Only after 1945 were the Jever Baptists able to exist again as an independent church.
Today (2019) the church of the house of prayer has 95 baptized members. There are also around 60 children, family members and friends of the community. The average attendance at church services is between 80 and 90 participants. The congregation belongs to the Evangelical Free Church State Association of Baptists in the Northwest and, within the state association, to the regional working group Ems-Jade-Mission .
Important personalities of the Jever Baptist church
Some personalities emerged from the Jever Baptist Congregation who were important in the founding phase and for the development of Baptism in Germany and in the neighboring countries. This includes:
- Anton Friedrich Remmers
- Johann Ludwig Hinrichs
- Frerich Bohlken
- August Friedrich Wilhelm Haese
- Johann Heinrich Ludwig Pielstick
See also
Sources and literature
- Archive of the Evangelical Free Church Community Jever: History of the Evangelical Baptist Congregation (handwritten addition of the parish book)
- Archive of the Evangelical Free Church in Jever: Community protocols 1881 - 1905
- Union of Baptist Congregations : Mission sheet 1/1859 ( Oncken Archive , Wustermark-Elstal)
- Heinz Buttjes: 150 years of Baptists in Jever , Jever 1990
- Günter Balders: Article chapel , in: Evangelisches Gemeindelexikon, Wuppertal 1978, ISBN 3-417-24082-4
- Margarete Jelten: Under God's roof tiles. Beginnings of Baptism in Northwest Germany , Bremerhaven 1984
- Gregor Helms: Secret baptism in the Tettenser Tief. 165 years of Baptists in Jever , in: Jeversches Wochenblatt No. 217/2005 (August 20, 2005), p. 33
- Klaus Andersen, Ingo Hashagen: Jever - Zentrum einer Herrschaft , Erfurt 2009, ISBN 978-3-86680-531-6 , p. 46
- Article: Long struggled for recognition - 150 years of prayer house on Elisabethufer . In: Nordwestzeitung Oldenburg , Jever local section, October 22, 2008 edition
Web links
- Official homepage of the municipality
- Chronicle of the Evangelical Free Church of Jever ( Memento from February 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 5.8 MB); accessed on February 18, 2010
Individual evidence
- ↑ cf. Günter Balders: Article Chapel, in: Evangelisches Gemeindelexikon, Wuppertal 1978, p. 291
- ^ Website of the Baptist Congregation Jever; Subpage "Bible Garden" ( Memento from June 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive ); (accessed February 13, 2009)
- ↑ Article: Bible Garden - Why? ( Memento of June 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) on the website of the Jever Baptist Congregation (accessed February 13, 2009)
- ↑ Wayback: Chronicle of the Evangelical Free Church of Jever ( Memento from February 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 5.8 MB); accessed on January 9, 2016
- ↑ Oncken's letter to the Baptist Missionary Society of December 6, 1856 ; Accessed September 23, 2008
- ^ Letter from Remmers to the Baptist Missionary Society , early January 1858 ; Accessed September 23, 2008
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