Christ Church (Athens)
The Christ Church in Athens is the house of worship of the Association of the Evangelical Church of the German Language in Greece and is located in the Kolonaki district, at the foot of Lycabettus (Odós Sína 68).
history
As early as 1687, a temporary Lutheran church was set up in a former mosque in Athens for German mercenaries in the Venetian service. The chaplain Ludwig Beithman (Peithman) consecrated this church. He was one of 6 field chaplains who accompanied the Hanoverian troops on their campaign against the Turks in Greece. Three of them died on this campaign.
From 1837, Lutheran services were held in the palace chapel, but after there were no Protestant members of the royal family due to the change of denomination, these were discontinued in 1913. At the foot of the Lykabettus a German quarter had formed since the end of the 19th century, there were also German restaurants and the headquarters of the German association “Philadelphia” (which was rededicated after 1945 as the first foreign Goethe Institute). In the 1920s, the evangelical community bought a piece of land there to build a church and a parish hall; due to financial constraints, construction dragged on until the early 1930s.
On August 8, 2004, the Sunday service of the Christ Church was broadcast directly by ZDF as a television service.
architecture
The single-nave church with a bell tower was built in the New Objectivity style in 1931–1934 . Almost all of the furnishings ( pulpit , pews , candlesticks, organ prospectus , doors, etc.) remain true to the so-called "Bauhaus style" down to the smallest detail. The simple interior is dominated by the mighty wooden cross in the chancel and directly behind it the entire east wall filling glass pictures by Walter von Ruckteschell , whose pictorial program tells central messages of the Gospel and events of salvation history, with one picture also commemorating the sermon of the Apostle Paul on the Athens Areopagus . Thus the Christ Church is a very rare example of sacred Bauhaus architecture or sacred architecture of classical modernism in general.
The two-manual Steinmeyer organ from the early 30s has retained its late romantic sound and has been completely overhauled.
Web links
Coordinates: 37 ° 58 ′ 56.6 ″ N , 23 ° 44 ′ 22.6 ″ E