Bethlehem Church (Berlin-Neukölln)
The Bethlehem Church in Rixdorf in the Berlin district of Neukölln of Berlin is located at Richardplatz 22. This Berlin village church is also generally known as the Rixdorf village church or Rixdorf village church , it has only been called the Bethlehem church since 1912.
history
In 1375, according to Charles IV's land register , Rixdorf could not have owned a village church, because Rixdorf was obliged to make payments to the pastor of Tempelhof . On the other hand, when Rixdorf was sold to the cities of Berlin / Cölln in 1435, a separate village church must already have existed. Nothing further is known about the design of the stone block church as a simple hall church . After Elector Joachim II converted to Lutheranism , the Lutheran denomination also became binding for the parish in Rixdorf. The renewed conversion of the Hohenzollern in 1613, this time to Calvinism, did not oblige the Lutheran parishes to change their denomination again.
After the village church was completely destroyed by fire in 1639, it was rebuilt and redesigned, whereby the floor plan and some of the remaining walls were adopted so that it retained its late Gothic substance. It received a three-sided choir closure . The field stones were plastered. From 1737 the church was shared by the churchgoers of the "Evangelical-Bohemian-Lutheran Bethlehem Community"; they were exiles who had fled from Bohemia and settled in Bohemian-Rixdorf. In 1757 the walls were raised and the church received a boarded roof tower ; the church got a baroque look. After the establishment of the Evangelical Church in the Royal Prussian Lands in 1817, the Lutheran parish of Rixdorf and the Bohemian-Lutheran Bethlehem parish also became members of this new Protestant state church , which, in addition to the predominantly Lutheran parishes, also included Reformed and Uniate parishes .
Between 1877 and 1879 the parish of Rixdorf, for whose growing number of members the village church had become too small, built the Magdalenenkirche as a new sermon site. In 1884 the parish of Rixdorf left the village church to the Bohemian Lutheran Bethlehem parish, which had been a guest in the house for a long time. This prompted another renovation from 1885 to 1887, to which the church owes the western vestibule and the eastern half-timbered sacristy. In 1912 the Bohemian Lutheran parish renamed the Rixdorf village church to Bethlehem Church. This name goes back to the Bethlehem Chapel in Prague , which played an important role for the Bohemian Brothers .
The last renovations took place between 1939 and 1941, when Paul Poser (1876–1940) and Walter Peschke widened the vestibule and rebuilt the roof. In 1949/1950 it was repaired after war damage. The interior of the church is kept very simple and has excellent acoustics , which is why concerts are held here.
The service, which takes place once or twice a month, is held in German, but uses the old liturgy . The parish is active in social areas. Since January 1, 2006, the Bethlehem Church, together with the Magdalenenkirche, the Ananias-Kirche and the Tabea-Kirche, belong to the Evangelical Parish of Rixdorf.
literature
- Old Berlin village churches. Heinrich Wohler's drawings , ed. v. Renate and Ernst Oskar Petras, Berlin 1988.
- Markus Cante: Churches until 1618 , in: Berlin and its buildings, Part VI: Sacred buildings. Ed .: Architects and Engineers Association of Berlin , Berlin 1997, pp. 347 and 350.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Wilhelm Hüffmeier : The Evangelical Church of the Union: A brief historical orientation. In: "... in accordance with the great purposes of Christianity": The Evangelical Church of the Union from 1817 to 1992; A handout for the communities . Bielefeld: Luther-Verlag, 1992, pp. 13–28, here p. 13. ISBN 3-7858-0346-X .
- ↑ a b Bethlehem Church neukoelln-online.de
- ↑ Bethlehem Church (Berlin-Neukölln). In: arch INFORM ; Retrieved December 14, 2009.
- ↑ According to a permanent notice in the church.
Coordinates: 52 ° 28 ′ 27 " N , 13 ° 26 ′ 51.1" E