Christ Church (Wolfsburg)

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Christ Church, view from the southwest
The Church from the East

The Evangelical Lutheran Christ Church was inaugurated in 1951 by Gerhard Langmaack in Wolfsburg - Schillerteich in Lower Saxony . It is the main church of the church district Wolfsburg- Wittingen . Your address is An der Christuskirche 4.

history

In 1938 - when the city was founded - the two historic Evangelical Lutheran churches of St. Annen and St. Marien were already in the city ​​area, but they were not sufficient for the growing city. Local plans from 1939, which provided for the construction of a Protestant church on Litzmannstrasse (today's Friedrich-Ebert-Strasse), could not be implemented because Adolf Hitler had fundamentally rejected the construction of churches and even the reservation of church building sites in newly emerging settlements. The “Gilde-Bräu-Häuschen” restaurant and the parking lot behind it are now located on the church building site planned in 1939.

After the end of the Second World War , a school barrack south of Heinrich-Heine-Strasse served as a meeting place for the Protestant parish. The services took place in the St. Anne's Church. In the winter of 1946/47 a barrack church with a bell tower was built south of the “Black Way” (today's Pestalozziallee) and was inaugurated on the 1st of Advent in 1947. This barrack previously served the Volkswagen factory as a team barrack . Soon, however, it no longer met the requirements. It existed until 1951 and was demolished again. From 1951 to 1955, today's Ratsgymnasium was built in its place .

The construction of the Christ Church according to plans by Gerhard Langmaack began in the fall of 1950, supported by a grant from the Volkswagen factory . On September 30, 1951, it was inaugurated as the first solidly built Protestant church in Wolfsburg after the city was founded. At that time, around 70 percent of the Wolfsburg population belonged to the Evangelical Lutheran Church. At the same time, the Roman Catholic Church of St. Christophorus was built near the Christ Church, also the largest church of its denomination in the city. Initially, the Christ Church was assigned to the Christ Congregation. In 1952 a community center and - south of the church - a youth center were built in the neighborhood; In 1953 a pastorate was established between the church and the youth home . In 1969 the youth home was converted into an "Evangelical Family Education Center", or "Fabi" for short. From 1975 to 1976 a Protestant kindergarten was built between the pastorate and the church.

In 2006 the Christ Congregation merged with the Wolfsburg congregations of St. Annen, Martin Luther and Johannes to form the town church congregation, which includes around 6,000 congregation members. In 2009 the “Family Education Center” moved to the “House of the Church” - the former parish hall. Numerous church district services have had their seat there since then; the "Fabi" courses take place there or on the opposite side of Friedrich-Ebert-Straße. The former building of the "Fabi" became the official residence of the superintendent of the church district.

Location, architecture, equipment and use

Main portal of the Christ Church

The church stands on a green area on the eastern edge of the Wolfsburg city center, near the Großer Schillerteich . It stands on a small, artificially constructed hill. The floor plan of the church is cruciform, with the choir to the east. It is clad on the outside with Elm limestone . On the walls of the nave there are 18 windows at a great height that let in plenty of light. The interior is closed off by a coffered ceiling . In the transept there is a baptismal font with a font , behind which is the pulpit . The organ was built by Paul Ott in 1951 and later changed several times; it is to the left of the altar in the transept.

The church has 680 seats, from which one looks at the altar and the altar windows behind it , which show the returning Christ . They were created based on designs by Johanna Schütz-Wolff in a Braunschweig workshop. The corridor runs from the main portal in the middle to the altar. On both sides of the aisle there are six slender columns with an octagonal floor plan. Outside above the main portal there is a stone figure of Christ, designed by Rolf Scheibner (Hamburg).

The free-standing, slim tower stands south of the main portal. Its floor plan is octagonal. Two thirds of it is also clad with Elm limestone, in the open bell area above it is provided with columns painted white and a tower clock with four dials. The tower is covered with an octagonal copper roof with a weathercock on it. The oldest of the six bells was probably cast in the early 15th century; she comes from Silesia and came to Wolfsburg via a Hamburg bell cemetery. A corridor on the first floor leads from the church to the tower.

Services are held regularly on Sundays. Performances of sacred music take place regularly . The church is also used for casualia .

See also

literature

  • Nicole Froberg, Ulrich Knufinke, Susanne Kreykenboom: Wolfsburg. The architecture guide. Braun Publishing, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-03768-055-1 , pp. 60-61.
  • Adolf Köhler: Wolfsburg. Building a city. 1948-1968. Wolfsburg, undated (around 1976), pp. 73, 75/76
  • Eberhard Rohde: Church barracks as a new beginning. In: Wolfsburger Nachrichten of May 2, 2015, p. 13. (on the history of the church)

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 50 years of St. Christophorus Church for the city. St. Christophorus parish. Wolfsburg 2001, pp. 33-43.
  2. ↑ Eberhard Rohde: On the 100th birthday of Erich Bammels. In: Wolfsburger Nachrichten of December 17, 2013, p. 11.
  3. ↑ Portrait at Soziales-wolfsburg.de (under "Infotext") ( Memento from December 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ a b c d e Christ Church at kirche-wolfsburg.de , accessed on September 28, 2013
  5. ↑ a b bells ringing over the city - Christ Church. Wolfsburger Nachrichten on September 25, 1951. In: City of Wolfsburg (Hrsg.): 50 years of Wolfsburg in the press. Press and Information Department of the City of Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg 1988, p. 24.
  6. ↑ Portrait at orgel-information.de with photos ( Memento from March 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive )

Coordinates: 52 ° 25 ′ 4.6 ″  N , 10 ° 47 ′ 26.5 ″  E