Christ Church (Freiburg im Breisgau)

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The church after the renovation
Christ Church (Freiburg) 03.jpg
Christ statue by Julius Seitz
View of the Christ Church from the Loretto Chapel

The Christ Church is a Protestant church in Freiburg im Breisgau in the Wiehre district . It was built from 1889 to 1891 according to plans by the architect Ludwig Diemer and inaugurated on May 31, 1891.

history

In the city of Freiburg, which had been under Austrian rule and was therefore Catholic, a larger Protestant community developed only after the transition to the Grand Duchy of Baden in 1806. The first Protestant church in the city was the Ludwigskirche in the Neuburg district. With the development of the Wiehre district, the need for a place of worship also grew here. In the 1880s, the establishment of a separate parish and a church was set up. The city ceded the building plot on the corner of Zasiusstrasse and Turnseestrasse free of charge. In return, she wanted a “beautiful, high and widely visible tower”. Thus, the building served the urban planning principle pursued under Mayor Otto Winterer , to mark the expanding city of Freiburg with towers. The first draft of the Grand Ducal Building Inspector Knoderer was brought down by church building officer Ludwig Diemer from the Protestant Church Building Inspectorate , who carried out his own plans. The Hereditary Grand Duke laid the foundation stone in 1889, and the building was inaugurated in 1891.

The construction costs amounted to 170,000 marks , namely the nave with a volume of 7128 m 3 was calculated on 18 marks, the tower with 1656 m 3 on 25 marks per cubic meter. The cost of organ, bells and clock was 17,000 marks; hence the total cost 187,000 marks. The church offered 1080 seats. The entire construction costs were raised by the Protestant parish through donations.

construction

The church is built on a cross-shaped plan. The nave has a block-like clarity and is dominated by the slender tower, the upper floors of which lead from the square floor plan into the octagon. The interior is divided by galleries, which can be seen on the outside of the two-storey wall structure. The polygonal closures of the choir and transverse arms create a connection between the longitudinal and central building. As a gallery church with a west tower pulled into the building, the Christ Church combines typical features of the Protestant church building. The styles are taken from the Italian Renaissance architecture. As a result, the church fits into the residential development of the Freiburg Wilhelminian-style district of the Wiehre that was being built at the time of construction . Due to the architectural style and the building material, green sandstone, the building also differs from the medieval building tradition of the city represented by the Freiburg Minster in the red sandstone typical of the area. The building belongs to the era of historicism . In a niche above the entrance portal is a statue of Christ by Julius Seitz from 1891, which is based on a work by Bertel Thorvaldsen in the Frauenkirche in Copenhagen , which has been copied many times .

Later changes

The 19th century interior has fallen victim to renovations since the 1930s. The three-manual Rieger organ dates from 1980. It was largely co-financed by the organ building association of the Christ Church Freiburg eV, which was founded for this purpose

In 2004 and 2005 the tower was renovated, but without the belfry . The three bells, including the Petrus Bell and the Our Father Bell, were dismantled in 2003 for safety reasons and stored on a temporary structure in the tower. Until 2010 the Christ Congregation collected enough donations for the own contribution of the belfry renovation, so that afterwards the old belfry made of steel could be replaced by a new one made of wood. The bells have been ringing again since Easter Sunday 2011.

From the end of June 2015 to the end of 2016 the church was closed and renovated. The altarpiece and a window were redesigned by the artist Harald Herrmann. On November 19, 2016, the church was reopened with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's Elias .

Parish hall

Parish hall

Just a few years after the Christ Church was completed, the parish and parish house at Maienstraße 2 was built in 1895/1896 as an unusual two-wing complex in representative forms based on a design by Walter, Jacobsen and Fr. Bauer . This construction was initiated by a donation of 10,000 marks from Freiin von Vincke. The parish hall and the Christ Church form an ensemble that is now a listed building . At that time it was the first exemplary “integrative church building” in Freiburg: For the first time, a modern parish center (church, parsonage with parish halls and neighboring kindergarten) was built in Freiburg.

The Christ Church

From the beginning, social work was an important factor in the pastoral work of the Christ Church. The introduction of a separate children's church service in 1891, with 800 to 900 children organized in 47 groups by volunteer helpers, and the establishment of a "children's custody" in 1897 were for the development of the Baden Regional church pointing the way.

Due to the importance of the church, the parish office was filled with outstanding personalities, including the grand ducal court preacher Dr. Ludwig Schmitthenner (1858-1932), who later became the first Protestant regional bishop Julius Kühlewein (1873-1948), the two pastors Hermann Weber (1892-1937) and Otto Hof (1902-1980), both declared opponents of National Socialism, and in the post-war period Berthold Kühlewein (1906–1980), who later became the head of the Evangelical Monastery in Freiburg, and Frido Ritter (1923–2010), the son of the historian and leading member of the Confessing Church , Gerhard Ritter . During the time of Frido Ritter, integrative social work at the Christ Church was expanded to include the disabled (ABC circle).

The emergence of the “ Freiburg Circle ”, the only professorial resistance group during the Nazi era , centered around the economists Walter Eucken , Adolf Lampe , Constantin von Dietze and the historian Gerhard Ritter , is closely connected to the Christ Church. The extent to which the meetings of the professors, who mostly met in their private apartments for security reasons, also extended to the publicly accessible parish hall, is controversial. What is certain is that the professors often spoke a “lay word” on Thursday so-called confessional evenings or on Sunday after the main service.

For decades, church music has been a focus of the Christ Congregation, where Klaus Knall worked as a church musician in the 20th century . Currently (2019) around 90 children, 15 young people and 70 adults are singing there with the Christ Choir under the Freiburg district cantor Hae Kyun Jung.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Quoted from Gudrun Matys: “The cathedral tower enjoys the wreath of beautiful churches” - considerations on the Freiburg church buildings of the 19th century in relation to the cathedral. Journal of the Breisgau History Association "Schauinsland" 111 (1992), pp. 95–128, here p. 105.
  2. ^ The parish churches of the suburbs . In: Baden Architects and Engineers Association, Upper Rhine District (Ed.): Freiburg im Breisgau. The city and its buildings . HM Poppen & Sohn, Freiburg im Breisgau 1898, p. 404-405 ( Scan - Wikisource ).
  3. ↑ Michael Klant: On the way to the sculpture park. In: 1000 years of Wiehre. An almanac 1008-2008. Freiburg i. Br. 2007, ISBN 978-3-923288-64-9 , p. 222.
  4. ^ Freiburg Süd: Church is closed for now. Badische Zeitung, June 20, 2015, accessed on December 16, 2016 .
  5. ↑ Alexander Dick: Classic: The Christ Church was reopened with Mendelssohn's "Elias". Badische Zeitung, November 21, 2016, accessed on November 21, 2016 .
  6. ↑ Private buildings, residential buildings . In: Baden Architects and Engineers Association, Upper Rhine District (Ed.): Freiburg im Breisgau. The city and its buildings . HM Poppen & Sohn, Freiburg im Breisgau 1898, p. 632 ( Scan - Wikisource ).
  7. ↑ Choir of the Christ Church in Freiburg. Retrieved March 12, 2019 .

Web links

See also

Commons : Christ Church  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 47 ° 59 ′ 14.1 ″  N , 7 ° 50 ′ 57.1 ″  E