Christ Church (Wuppertal-Elberfeld)
The Christ Church in the southern part of the Wuppertal district of Elberfeld is the fourth church built for the Lutheran community of Elberfeld.
The Christ Church is today next to the Johanneskirche, which was built as an emergency church after the war, of the Evangelical Church Community Elberfeld-Südstadt.
Building history
At the turn of the 20th century, the Lutheran community in Elberfeld had exceeded 60,000 believers. As early as 1890, a plot of land on Grifflenberg had been made available by the Schreiner family, and a church building association was formed, which commissioned the government master builder Heinrich Plange to design a new church. One of the community's wishes was that the new building should be modeled on the old church on the Kolk ; the required number of seats of 1,300 made this almost impossible. Nevertheless, the architect primarily oriented himself towards the forms of the “Bergisch Baroque”, which he combined with Renaissance elements. A few years earlier, Plange had failed with draft sketches for the reformed cemetery church by the prominent architect Johannes Otzen , but its basic layout with the nave, transverse arms and a tower in front was then apparently implemented in the Christ Church.
Laying of the foundation stone
The groundbreaking ceremony took place in 1898. On May 15, 1899 the foundation stone could be laid, the inscription of which from Hebrews 13, verse 8 refers to the basis of church and congregation: "Jesus Christ, yesterday and today and the same forever." Construction of the church began in May 1899, on December 5, 1901 it was inaugurated by the general superintendent Valentin Umbeck .
The church building is oriented to the east. A square 70 meter high tower with an octagonal structure, on which two stairwells are leaning, defines the west facade. Plange extended the single-nave, lengthwise rectangular room with two short cross arms to form a Latin cross , the two yokes of the nave and the cross arms were built over with pillarless galleries. The relatively large crossing gave the building the impression of a central building, which was reinforced by the concave singers' gallery in the polygonal choir and the semicircular balustrade on the western gallery. The altar, pulpit, singing gallery and organ were arranged centrally one behind the other, the benches on the ground floor aligned in a circle with the altar and pulpit. It is interesting to see how Plange combined forms of the Bergisch Baroque with the ideas of the Wiesbaden program , which arranges the community space close to the altar and pulpit. Johannes Otzen's cemetery church may also have made suggestions here.
War damage
In the course of the Second World War, all churches were obliged to hand in their bronze bells, so the four bells of the Christ Church were also removed. The bombing raid during the night of April 24-25. June, which severely destroyed the entire southern part of the city, also damaged the Christ Church. An incendiary bomb fell through the roof but did not go off. The organist at the time, Neumann, brought the bomb out of the church at risk of death. The roof was partially covered by the dud and some windows were destroyed, the church could have been preserved. Material shortages and looters then turned them into ruins.
reconstruction
In 1947 Pastor Dr. Bröcking with the saying from Nehemiah 2,18 “So let us be up to build. And your hands will be strengthened for good! ”To clear the rubble. On the 1st of Advent 1948, a makeshift church room for 250 people within the church walls and a small sexton apartment were inaugurated.
Three of the four Christ church bells were found at the bell collection point near Hamburg after the war and were already back in the tower. The smallest, the hour bell of the clock, however, remained lost, so it was decided to remove the dials and do without a clock. The Christ Church Building Association was founded in 1953 and sold building blocks for the rebuilding of the Christ Church.
In 1955 the building was rebuilt according to plans by the Trier architect Heinrich Otto Vogel in a completely independent, modern architectural form. The exterior, especially the tower, was partially preserved. A gable roof uniformly spans the nave and transverse arms. The architect completely redesigned the interior. Similar to the Sophienkirche a few years later , the level of the church interior was raised to the level of the galleries, below which parish rooms were accommodated. The necessary elevation of the outer walls was carried out as a reminder of the destruction with visible rubble bricks. Vogel emphasized the longitudinal shape of the room with a wide central aisle and a central window in the choir, the organ was moved to the west side. Slender, plain tubular steel supports carry the gable roof reproduced inside over the entire length of the room and divide the room into three naves; Galleries have been drawn into the transept arms.
On September 9, 1956, the rebuilt Christ Church was inaugurated by President Heinrich Karl Ewald Held . The construction costs amounted to around one million DM, of which the Christ Church Building Association contributed 94,000 DM.
In May 1961 the tower was scaffolded again to remove the handle and the openings of the tower clocks.
In August 1962, the installation of the organ began by Professor Karl Schuke, Berlin, three manuals, Hauptwerk-Positiv-Brustwerk-Pedal work , 2464 pipes, 35 registers . (The destroyed organ had 41 stops and old Südstadt residents remember that looters and vandals had distributed the organ pipes all over the Südstadt.)
In 1977 two of the bells were lifted out of the tower because they were cracked and could not be rung for a long time. It was probably damage caused by the transports during the war. A few weeks later, the repaired bells could be put back into operation.
In 1979 the masonry and the grouting of the tower were renovated and in 1981 the community rooms in the basement were converted to take into account the increased space requirements of the flourishing community work. On October 27, 1989, the Christ Church with the number D 1657 was placed under monument protection. In the years 2011 to 2013 the ailing spire had to be replaced by a new copper one.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Christ Church: Donors should save the tower Westdeutsche Zeitung (online) of November 30, 2010
literature
- Klaus Pfeffer: The church buildings in Wuppertal-Elberfeld. Cologne 1980, ISBN 3-88094-301-X .
- 90 years of Christ Church Elberfeld, ed. by Frank H. Petig, oOuJ (Wuppertal 1991).
- Klaus Goebel , Andreas Knorr (Ed.): Churches and places of worship in Elberfeld. Düsseldorf 1999, ISBN 3-930250-35-7 .
- Werner Franzen: Worship sites in transition. Protestant church building in the Rhineland 1860-1914. Dissertation, University of Duisburg 2002. ( online )
- Hermann-Peter Eberlein: Thousand Years of Church in Elberfeld. In: Geschichte im Wuppertal, 19th year: 400 years of Elberfeld town rights, ed. Bergischer Geschichtsverein 2010, pp. 16–31.
Web links
- Entry in the Wuppertal monument list
- Website of the community
Coordinates: 51 ° 14 '59.4 " N , 7 ° 8' 50.3" E