Christoph Karst

Christoph Karst (born June 10, 1864 in Berlin ; † October 11, 1935 there ) was a Catholic pastor who worked in the St. Josef parish in Köpenick and made a significant contribution to the construction of the St. Joseph Church . In the course of his priestly life he received several orders and honorary titles.

Development to the priest

Christoph Karst received his education at the Friedrichs-Gymnasium Berlin . He then studied theology at the University of Münster and the University of Breslau . In Breslau he received on 27 February in 1889 by the then Prince Bishop of the Diocese of Breslau Georg von Kopp the priesthood .

His assignments as a pastor in parishes led him first to Schwiebus , then as a chaplain to the Cathedral of the Assumption in Glogau in Silesia . On August 24, 1892, Karst was appointed to the Fürstenwalde parish for work in the Cöpenick branch , at that time an independent town on the outskirts of Berlin. He moved into a former residential building on the property at Lindenstrasse  43 (then house number 11), which the community had acquired in 1884, and organized a lively community life. Above all, he gave school lessons here and redesigned a room into the Sebastian Chapel, in which services were held.

Pastor in Köpenick

With Cöpenick, Christoph Karst had taken over a "gigantic parish " which "stretched from the borders of Lichtenberg to far beyond Fürstenwalde, [...] thus encompassing the entire east of Berlin and a large part of the province of Brandenburg ." That is why he did not give Catholic religious instruction only in Cöpenick, but also in neighboring towns such as Adlershof , Britz , Johannisthal , Grünau , Königs Wusterhausen , Oberschöneweide and celebrated regular services in the house of the Cöpenick merchant Schmidt, soon in a prepared prayer room .

With the rapidly growing population in Cöpenick (spelling from 1931 with "K") the number of Catholics also increased, around 3,000 believers around 1890. This made it necessary to quickly build a church building of its own in the village instead of a temporary solution in a private house . Karst took care of donations for the building and contacted the Berlin builder Paul Franke , who provided the first building sketches. After overcoming numerous bureaucratic obstacles, the church could be built on the parish property from 1897.

After the Prince-Bishop's delegate, Karl Neuber, inaugurated the church building in Köpenick on March 25, 1899 , Christoph Karst made sure that the branch communities, all organizationally part of the Lichtenberg deanery , gradually received their own church buildings and thus left his sphere of activity. At the same time, he collected further donations and achieved that the Köpenick community was already debt-free in 1900.

Soon the parish council put a second clergyman at his side, and in 1901 three Sisters of Mercy of St. Karl Borromeo moved into a nurses' home in Cöpenick on Annenallee .

In February 1929 Christoph Karst celebrated a festive thanksgiving service on the occasion of his 40th anniversary as a priest in the Church of St. Joseph. The community had for him gold silk vestments can be manufactured, and special guests as pastor Melchior Grossek and deacon Kaplan Neumann were present.

In 1930 Christoph Karst retired, Pastor Alfred Kionke took over the office until 1935.

Procession in Berlin with Christoph Karst in front left

Gravestone in Köpenick

Karst died in 1935 in Berlin's St. Hedwig Hospital of a pulmonary embolism that he suffered after surgery for bladder cancer. In a memorial service, the members of the Berlin Catholic community said goodbye to Christoph Karst. He received his final resting place on the grounds of St. Josef Church in Köpenick.

Honors

The work of Christoph Karst for the common good was recognized by the award of numerous medals, but above all by the appointment to " Archpriest ad honorem" (1912) and the award of the title of clergyman (1924). In 1927, the Berlin Council of Churches transferred the administration of the Neukölln Archipresbyterate to him and officially appointed him archpriest. Later he also received the distinction of Papal Secret Chamberlain and Prelate .

In an obituary by the Catholic clergy it was said: "Another generation of Catholic clergymen who can be called the organizers of Catholicism in the cosmopolitan city has sunk."

After the turning point and peaceful revolution in the GDR , the parish arranged for a memorial stone to be erected on the church grounds to commemorate all deceased pastors in the community, including Karsts.

Literature and main source

• Parish office St. Josef (Ed.): Chronicle. 100 years of St. Josef, Berlin-Köpenick . Author: a three-person ABM team, Berlin 1999, 248 pp.