Christ Church (Brühl)
The Christ Church in Brühl is a Protestant church consecrated in 1888 . It is considered to be the oldest Protestant church between Cologne and Bonn. The diaspora community was founded on the influx of Prussian , mostly Protestant soldiers, civil servants and entrepreneurs after the wars of liberation .
Church history
After the Reformation , Protestantism also took hold in Brühl. The city lord Hermann von Wied was still strictly Catholic at the beginning of his rule. In 1535, for example, Johann Klopreis , who had been caught in Münster , was burned as a Protestant martyr on the west side of the Brühl Castle . In 1543 the archbishop's attitude had changed so that he had the Lord's Supper served in both forms . But he could not prevail against the emperor and the pope, and the evangelical Schmalkaldic League refused to support him. Thus, the Reformation was the Rhineland after the excommunication of Archbishop in April 1545 and finally in 1547 after the Schmalkaldic War failed. In the period that followed, all Protestants and immigrants had to convert to the Catholic faith.
In 1812, still in the French era , there were only six evangelicals after the parishes, in 1834, in the time of Prussia, 61. The first evangelical service was held in 1834 by the divisional pastor as a military service for the von Goeben infantry regiment stationed in Koblenz and partly in Brühl “(2. Rheinisches) No. 28 held. From 1836 onwards, based on a cabinet order, a room was available in the castle for the evangelical service , which was furnished by divisional or Cologne pastors every four weeks. In the autumn of 1842, Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Even attended a service in the palace. In a similar way, church services were held in Bornheim , in the castle there, and a congregation was considered. After initiatives for the formation of a separate parish and a presbytery had been formed in the meantime, the first pastor and palace preacher , Erwin Scheden, was elected together with Bornheim on August 14, 1851 with the approval of the consistory . This is considered to be the foundation date of the church. Previously was Kirchenkreis Mülheim am Rhein future municipal area have been delineated. The community comprised the mayor's offices of Brühl, Rondorf (excluding Rodenkirchen), Gymnich , Liblar , Lechenich , Erp , Friesheim , Weilerswist , Hürth (excluding BM Efferen and excluding Gleuel and Berrenrath) as well as the Rhine from Wesseling to Hersel , a total of 108 Evangelicals (the Bornheimers brought together 75). The particularly active first parishioners are worth mentioning: the royal upper mountain jury Bergmann was the first church master elected from 21 eligible voters in 1837, landowner Friedrich Wilhelm Bendleb from the Weilerhof in Fischenich was a parish elder and merchant Lenz was appointed deacon for the welfare of the poor. Other "celebrities" were the court gardener Claussen, the chief forester Schirmer, the major Berthold and the landowner Friedrich Giesler , who had bought the Falkenlust castle and estate in 1833 and later became the richest citizen of Brühl, all of whom came. The two parishes with a parish office (until December 31, 1894) were officially approved by the state on November 20, 1855, and since then there has also been a subsidy to the parish salary as a state benefit , which was also borne by voluntarily promised annual donations by parishioners. The Cologne branch of the Gustav-Adolf-Werk gave 100 thalers . In addition to the castle preacher, the pastor was also a military chaplain for the soldiers stationed in the castle and had to hold services in Polish four times in the various garrisons . He lived in the castle.
Due to the increase in the population in Brühl and the surrounding area due to industrialization, especially due to the lignite industry, and after the Second World War due to the increase in resettlers from the mostly evangelical eastern areas , parish districts with church services held every 14 days were increasingly established in previously built schools or in private houses , then built churches and finally founded their own congregations. This development was completed in 1957 with the founding of the Evangelical Church in Hürth . Before that, after the retirement of Pastor Georg Grosser, an honorary citizen since 1963, who had worked here for 34 years up to his 70th birthday and with a total of 42 years of service, a second pastor's position was approved for Brühl. When the congregation grew to 12,000 members, there were even four pastors. Today three clergy in six churches care for around 9,300 parishioners.
Church building
There was enough room in the castle for the small community. They also wanted to build a school first (26 children in 1852) and when the parish apartment was given notice after the renovation of the castle (1862), a school and a rectory were built in 1863 on a plot of land that was acquired by the castle administration. At the cost of 6000 thalers , the king gave 1000 as a gift of grace .
In his will, Friedrich Giesler had already designated 2000 thalers for the church building . Richard Frickenhaus (1876–1920 pastor in Brühl) took the opportunity to acquire another piece of land from the domain administration, which had become free of lease in 1879, on condition that the building plans be submitted to the lord of the castle. The building councilor Karl Freyse from Cologne-Lindenthal estimated the construction costs (initially without the tower) at 45,000 gold marks , to which a gift of grace of 8,550 marks and many other bequests were made. The community members were happy to sign their contributions to the construction costs, so that the foundation stone could be laid on September 2, 1886 and then the courage to take out additional loans for the tower and build it at the same time. On September 21, 1888, the church was inaugurated with the participation of the Koblenz church leadership and 22 pastors from the neighboring parishes under Superintendent Bartelheim from Cologne. The church immediately had a bronze bell with three bells from the Rincker bell and art foundry , whose largest widow Giesler had donated (the smallest survived the First World War and then did its job in the Friedenskirche (Liblar) ), and a small organ from the company Walcker with 9 registers. The church windows were made by the Cologne-Lindenthal glass painting company Schneider and Schmolz .
The church fell victim to the last of the bombing raids on March 4, 1945 at 1.30 a.m., only the tower remained badly torn open. There were around 60 bomb craters from the parish garden and church to the castle park . On March 7th, the Americans entered Brühl. The parish and parish houses were also hit, but could be rebuilt by the end of 1946, the parish house by January 1950. Services were held again in the castle, in the orangery.
After the rubble had been removed, the foundation stone for the reconstruction was laid under the altar on September 10, 1950. The construction cost almost 230,000 DM, even if some bricks were reused. Industry contributed 35,000 DM, as well as many Brühler - including Catholic - shops and the city council and the church building association, which had existed since 1949 and collected almost 300 DM per month. The building stands on the old foundations in the shape of a cross, but with a simpler shape and less thick walls with a simple beamed ceiling and simple high round arched windows, not least at the insistence of the state curator Franz Graf Wolff Metternich. Ultimately, the presbytery also agreed that the remains of the neo-Gothic sandstone figures of the tower should be chopped off.
After a Peter organ, the church received an organ from Weimbs Orgelbau with 26 registers in 1980 .
literature
- Georg Grosser: Evangelical community life in the Cologne region. Verlag der Löwe, Cologne 1958, p. 9 ff.
- Helmut Fußbroich u. a .: Evangelical churches in Cologne and the surrounding area . JP Bachem, Cologne 2007, ISBN 3-7616-1944-8 .
Web links
- Church Brühl kirche-bruehl.de
- Christ Church bruehl.de
Individual evidence
- ^ City history 1844 ( Memento from February 1, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Kunst-Glasmalerei Schneiders & Schmolz GmbH Koeln-Lindenthal: List of a number of already executed glass paintings together with a few illustrations . Cologne 1902, p. 9 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 49 ′ 47.4 " N , 6 ° 54 ′ 26.9" E