Christ Church (Heiligenstadt in Upper Franconia)

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Entrance area of ​​the Christ Church
Hillside location: The community center is on the upper floor
foyer
Worship room
Baptistery

The Christ Church is the house of God of the Baptist Community of Heiligenstadt in Upper Franconia, which is affiliated to the Federation of Evangelical Free Churches . It is located on the grounds of the Evangelical Free Church Diakoniewerk TABEA Leinleitertal and was handed over to its worship service on October 26, 2003.

The church, which with its numerous ancillary rooms forms the upper floor of a multi-storey senior citizen's residential complex built on a hillside, is the work of the Berlin architect Ulrich Arndt . The Lausanne engineering firm Prof. Julius Natterer planned your unusual roof structure . The window picture of the baptismal apse was created by the Rottweiler artist Tobias Kammerer .

Building description

The Christ Church speaks “the architectural language of its surroundings”. For example, the four massive corner towers of the church are reminiscent of the castles and churches in the immediate vicinity. The village linden tree that was planted in front of the church is "a typical urban element of the region". The roof with its numerous horizontal lines is intended to refer to the grassroots democratic community structure of the Baptist Free Church .

Exterior view

Four massive corner towers give the church building a solid structure. At the rear of the hillside complex, they extend down to the ground floor. Its slightly grained surface and light gray color point to the rock from which the building grows. The towers are connected by light, non-load-bearing wall shells that are clad with dark gray fiber cement panels. The cantilevered roof “floats” over the corner towers and walls. It consists of board stacking elements that rest on flat glued wood wreaths. The roof is crowned by a simple cross. Narrow, vertically installed window elements, which connect corner towers and wall shells with one another and extend from the floor to the ceiling, ensure the incidence of light. Two surrounding window friezes in the roof construction provide an interesting skylight. The glass entrance door, above which the name of the church is in capital letters, shows, among other things, the Greek letters Chi and Rho , the traditional abbreviation for Christ .

inside view

If you enter the church through the main entrance, you come to a large foyer. The anteroom is equipped with a cloakroom, a book table and the mailboxes typical of Baptist churches, through which parishioners receive their magazines, parish information and personal messages. The chairs and tables in the foyer are used for the Sunday church café, which takes place after the services. A corridor leads from the foyer to the group and sanitary rooms of the community center. The largest adjoining room is the Bible study room. The apartments on the lower floors are connected to the church level via an elevator.

The worship room, which is separated from the foyer by a glass wall, makes a bright and warm impression. On its front wall there is a simple wooden cross that overlooks the entire liturgical center. The Lord's Supper table and the pulpit take up the motif of the stacked boards in the roof construction, but - unlike the roof - are made of European maple . A grand piano is available for musical accompaniment .

A special feature is the round baptismal font, which is located in an apse on the right side wall and into which seven circular steps lead down. The importance of baptism is underlined by a seven-part window painting by the artist Tobias Kammerer (see picture).

History of the community

The beginnings of the Heiligenstadt Baptist Congregation in the 1970s are closely linked with the establishment of the Evangelical Free Church Family Center in Heiligenstadt , which was inaugurated on September 27, 1975 as a diaconal institution for the Northern Bavarian Baptist Congregations. The facility, which has been sponsored by the Evangelical Free Church Diakoniewerk TABEA eV since 2011 , includes various branches of care for the elderly, a senior citizens' residence, holiday apartments and a conference and leisure facility. After a long development phase, which was accompanied by the northern Bavarian Baptist congregations, in particular the Bamberg congregation , a constituent congregation meeting took place on July 6, 1978. The participants in this meeting were mainly residents and employees of the family center, who had been members of the Bamberg Baptist Congregation until then. Initially, the Heiligenstadt Baptists worked as a legally non-independent branch of the Bamberg community. As early as 1979, the mother congregation left the administration of members and funds to its branch congregation. The congregation received its recognition as an "independent congregation of the Federation of Evangelical Free Churches" in 1987.

For the church service , the young congregation first met in the common rooms of the family center. Baptisms , which are performed by immersion in Baptist congregations, took place in the swimming pool of the diaconal institution during this time. In October 1992 - the congregation had grown to over 100 members in the meantime - the congregation assembly decided to create a church building account in order to finance a larger church service room. However, the first plans for an extension were discarded. Only with the inauguration of the Christ Church did the Baptist community in Heiligenstadt receive its own community center.

After 1978 the following pastors worked in the Heiligenstadt Baptist congregation: Gotthard Schüttel (1978–1982), Wolfgang Meckbach (1983–1985), Helmut Grundmann (pastor em .; 1986–1991), Erwin Jescheniak (1991–2000), Reinhold Brunkel (ab 2000).

Literature (selection)

  • Reinhold Brunkel (Ed.): Memories of 25 years of the community of Heiligenstadt i. OFr. , Heiligenstadt 2003
  • Ulrich Arndt: What are we inviting you to? Thoughts on baptism and baptistery , p. 24 ( PDF-online )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The descriptions in this chapter are essentially taken from a brochure written by Reinhold Brunkel, Ulrich Arndt, Tobias Kammerer and Konrad Moll. It is called Christ Church in Heiligenstadt and was published in 2003 on the occasion of the inauguration ceremony.
  2. ↑ See Joachim Radtke: This is how it began. When residents become a community , in: Memories of 25 years of the community of Heiligenstadt i.OFr. (Ed. Reinhold Brunkel), Heiligenstadt 2003, p. 3f
  3. ↑ Renate Girlich-Bubeck (Association of Evangelical Free Churches in Germany): A festival of hope. Heiligenstadt family center rescued (December 7, 2011) ( Memento of the original from June 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; Accessed June 13, 2015  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.baptisten.de
  4. ↑ Gotthard Schüttel: Beginning of community work (1978–1982) , in: Memories of 25 years of the community of Heiligenstadt i.OFr. (Ed. Reinhold Brunkel), Heiligenstadt 2003, p. 9
  5. ↑ Reinhold Brunkel: Memories of 25 years of the community of Heiligenstadt i. OFr. , Heiligenstadt 2003, p. 2
  6. ↑ Reinhold Brunkel: Memories of 25 years of the community of Heiligenstadt i. OFr. , Heiligenstadt 2003, p. 16

Coordinates: 49 ° 51 '46.2 "  N , 11 ° 10' 44.1"  E