Village church Grunow (Oberbarnim)

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Feldsteinkirche Grunow in August 2012

The village church Grunow is the Protestant church of Grunow , a district of the municipality Oberbarnim in the district of Märkisch-Oderland in Brandenburg . The village is located in the Märkische Schweiz nature park .

The listed field stone church from the 13th century consists of a rectangular nave , recessed choir and semicircular apse . Originally a full type construction , the church tower was demolished in 1829. Today the bell hangs in a wooden bell shower next to the church. The church has an unusually high number of seven checkerboard stones in the exterior masonry and a stone with a Jerusalem cross, which is unique in the region .

Historical classification and use today

Location and cemetery

The church is located on the eastern edge of Grunow on the connecting road to Ihlow ( district road 6414 ) shortly after the bridge over the Sophienfließ . According to the regional historian Matthias Friske, the unusual location outside of today's village center can only be explained by the fact that Grunow fell temporarily desolate and was later rebuilt slightly to the west. Rudolf Schmidt explains that the houses east of the church towards Ihlow were no longer built after the Thirty Years War . The church was surrounded by a churchyard , which was closed or relocated in 1870. The surrounding stone wall has been preserved in its foundations. The new cemetery was put into use in December 1870 a few meters east of the church at the exit to Ihlow on the opposite side of the street.

Parish and church land

The church was built in the 13th century, when Barnim was firmly in Askanian hands as a result of the Teltow and Magdeburg wars . As far as is known, Grunow was first mentioned in 1315 in a Strausberg document in the name of Councilor Conradus de Grunow . The name, made up of green / green and the suffix -ow (here for Aue ) = (village on a) green meadow , was, according to the Brandenburg name book, a fashionable name for the German eastern settlement in the 12th and 13th. Century. In 1375, Charles IV's land register gives 62 hooves for the village, four of which were used to maintain the parish. The village was owned by Johanns Trebus and later by the noble family von Barfus from the Altmark , who also held the church patronage . In 1459 Grunow belonged to the Strausberg Provost and in 1542 Grunow was the mother church of Bollersdorf . After the Reformation , before 1561, the church was parish off to Prädikow . After being owned by the noble families von Schwerin and from 1709 von Kameke , the barons von Eckardstein bought Prötzel with the castle Prötzel , Prädikow , Reichenow and Grunow in 1800 . In 1828 they also acquired the parish land (152  acres ) in leasehold , in 1829 the church land (110 acres). The remaining burdens were replaced by interest-bearing pension letters in 1874.

Today's community and usage

Today, the church part of the "parochial parish Märkische Switzerland" in the church district Oderland-Spree of the Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Oberlausitz (EKBO). Also for the residents of the former agricultural Barbican and today Grunower living space Ernsthof was and is the church of the meeting place for worship since Ernsthof after his Aufsiedlung (from 1933) received no own church. In addition to regular church services, concerts are held in the church as part of the Märkische Schweiz music summer, field stones and music . The church is also on the Oberbarnimer Feldstein route .

Building history and architecture

The regional historian Matthias Friske gives a length of 15 meters and a width of 10 meters for the nave. The length of the choir is 7 meters, its width 7.5 meters. The semicircular apse has a length of 2 meters and a width of around 6 meters.

Church building

South side of the church

The masonry of the church consists of regular stone blocks. Only the west wall is largely made of modern bricks , as are the buttresses. The pointed gable of the west wall is still mostly made of field stones. Under the top of the gable there is an arched, open window, which, like a sound hatch, is only provided with horizontal wooden struts. The top of the gable is decorated with a simple Latin cross . Between the buttresses is the round-arched and renewed west portal, today the only entrance to the church. According to Friske, the two lower regular stones indicate that the west entrance goes back to a portal from the 13th century.

Former arched gates are also on both sides of the ship. They are walled up and still have old guides for a locking beam. Another, also arched door sits on the north side of the choir. The north side of the ship has four arched windows: three high, original lancet windows and a low window at portal height. All windows were later changed and framed with red bricks. The two outer windows on the south side of the ship have been enlarged, while the middle one can only be seen walled up. The apse still contains all three windows, also modified here. Nave and choir are with gable roofs covered. The semicircular roof of the comparatively very small apse ends at the eaves height of the large roofs.

Structural changes and repairs

Apse window

Both the Hussite Wars (in Brandenburg 1431/32) and the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) left deep traces in Grunow. The war damage protocol of 1634 already recorded 28 of the 55 village hooves as desolate and in 1652 the land rider only met three people. It is very likely that the church moved to the outskirts in the 17th century, because the parts of the houses east of the church towards Ihlow were not rebuilt after the Thirty Years War, according to Rudolf Schmidt. It is not known whether and to what extent the church was harmed in these wars; the first data on its structural development are available for 1693. This year the church register noted the church:

"After the same building again with the assistance of God and applied common diligent help and thereby consumed the previous collection, this venerated Adam Heyde, the time pensioner zu Predickow 1693, invoking God's rich blessing, peace and pious Christians with mild generosity."

- Grunow church register, 1693.

After the renovation in 1693, the church book also lists numerous repairs and purchases for the following years, including: 1698 Repair of the church roof, which was smashed in a storm in 1694. Two hundred tiles cost one thaler . To finance it, the poor church had to borrow from the churches in Prädikow and Ruhlsdorf , which were repaid in 1701. Around this time, paving was also carried out with 2,700 bricks. In 1705 18 thalers, 10 groschen and 9 pfennigs were paid for the choir , in 1710 15 thalers and 13 groschen were paid in front of the bell structure . In 1723 a tower clock was purchased for 90 thalers, which was replaced in 1770 for 56 thalers by a new clock with a clock plate with real gold and gilded hands . In 1736 the tower was repaired for 62 thalers, in 1746 the church roof was re-covered and in 1747 another church repaired for 56 thalers, 22 groschen and 6 pfennigs. In 1760, during the Seven Years' War , the Prädikow pastor made a note of the Grunow church cash balance that he had in custody:

“This stock of 233 Tlr. 17 gr. 10 Pfg. Was stolen by the Russian Cossacks in the local rectory on October 8th and 13th. "

- Note from the pastor in Prädikow, 1760.

There were further extensive repairs in 1769 (89 thalers), 1829 (including the acceptance of the church tower, which was only built in 1781 for 112 thalers; 371 thalers) and, above all, in 1844 (370 thalers). In 1859 the interior was repaired and a cross was placed on the west gable (120 thalers). Another major repair in 1882 did not prevent the church from falling into disrepair and having to be closed. It was only restored in 1922/23 on behalf of Baron Eckardstein on Prötzel. After being destroyed in the Second World War , the church had to be comprehensively repaired again.

Bells and bells

Bell shower with the Bachmann bell from 1874
Checkerboard pieces
Jerusalem stone

In 1712, according to the church register, over 42 thalers were spent to cast the central bell . 1855, the church was the bell in Berlin for 115 Taler recast . The whereabouts of this bell is unclear. After the church tower was dismantled in 1829, the church was not given a new tower. The bell hangs in a separate wooden bell shower located on the west side of the church. Today's bell was cast by Wilhelm Bachmann in Berlin in 1874 .

Under the bell shoulder is engraved in capital letters:

  • Cast by W. Bachmann in Berlin in 1874.

The bell bears the inscription on the flank

  • Honor to God alone!

Under this first line of the Gloria in exelsis (1526, EG 179, GL 457), translated into German by Nikolaus Decius , is the name

  • Maria.

Checkerboard stones and Jerusalem stone

In addition to its unusual location outside the village, the Grunow Church has another special feature: the extraordinarily high number of seven checkerboard stones and a stone with the Jerusalem cross, which is unique in the region . In Germany, stones with a checkerboard pattern are found almost exclusively on churches from the 13th and 14th centuries. Century west and east of the Oder . The neighboring churches of Ihlow , Prädikow and Ringenwalde have, like about four dozen others, only one of the stones that are still puzzling today. There is no conclusive explanation either for the accumulation of stones in Grunow or for their function / meaning (in the unresolved discussion there are building hut signs, signs of the Ascanians , possibly even Wettin , signs of the Cistercians or the Templars or an apotropaic , i.e. disaster averting function). The fields are designed in different sizes and were created by roughening the stone. They appear seemingly randomly in the masonry of many churches in the region in various places.

In Grunow there are six green, blue and red checkerboard stones , including two corner stones , at the northwest corner of the church in the fifth, sixth and seventh (visible) field stone layer from below. Another stone lies in the north wall of the choir above the walled-up gate. The Jerusalem stone decorates the west side of the northern support pillar. Since it is located next to the destroyed west portal, Matthias Friske assumes that the stone originally sat above the west entrance used for ceremonial occasions. At least this stone was used as a secondary installation. The Jerusalem Cross , symbol of the Order of the Knights of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and used today, for example, as the logo of the German Evangelical Church Congress , is a common or Greek cross with a smaller Greek cross in each of the four quadrants . The five crosses symbolize Christ and the four evangelists or the five wounds of Christ.

Interior and inventory

In the interior, the pointed arched triumphal arch with two projecting fighters at the base of the arch is striking. Since the ship's walls protrude slightly in the lower part, Matthias Friske suspects that a choir screen was installed between the choir and the ship in the Middle Ages . The apse is vaulted with a semi-dome .

In 1542 the visitation protocol listed a chalice . In 1600 two brass candlesticks, two chasubles and a missal were listed. According to the church book, a tin wine bottle was purchased for 20 groschen , a tin wafer plate for 4 groschen and a baptismal font for 2 talers and 12 groschen . The basin was poured by the pot maker Wilhelm Piepenbrank from Wriezen . As a pewter mark , an angel mark was struck next to the master’s initials (WP). In 1723 the church bought a pewter goblet for 1 taler and 12 groschen and a large Bible for 3 talers because the thief stole the previous one . According to Schmidt, the altar Bible, which was available in 1926, was from 1876. In 1852, 34 thalers were spent on new altar and pulpit clothing, and in 1877 the clothing was replaced. In 1866 the church received an organ , which the Müllros organ builder Carl Ferdinand Landow (* 1816, † after 1869) had made for around 300 thalers. For playing the organ, the sexton (the sexton's position has been recorded since 1776) and the bellower each received a salary of 5 thalers. According to Friske, older inventory items are no longer available in the church.

literature

Web links

Commons : Dorfkirche Grunow (Oberbarnim)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Brandenburg-Viewer, Digital Topographic Maps 1: 10,000 (click on the menu). In some descriptions it can be read that the church is on a hill. At most, it can be said that the church site rises by around one meter compared to the surrounding area - see also the digital site model in the Brandenburg Viewer.
  2. ^ Rudolf Schmidt, p. 84.
  3. ^ Matthias Friske, pp. 163, 165.
  4. ↑ Rudolf Schmidt, p. 91.
  5. ^ Matthias Friske, pp. 165, 391, 492.
  6. ↑ Reinhard E. Fischer : The place names of the states of Brandenburg and Berlin. Volume 13 of the Brandenburg Historical Studies on behalf of the Brandenburg Historical Commission. be.bra Wissenschaft, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-937233-30-X , ISSN  1860-2436 , pp. 70, 204.
  7. ↑ a b Matthias Friske, p. 163.
  8. ^ Rudolf Schmidt, pp. 1, 10, 84, 89.
  9. ^ Churches in Buckow (Märkische Schweiz): visiting card. Parish district Märkische Schweiz .
  10. ^ Office Märkische Schweiz. Music summer. Field stone and music .
  11. ↑ a b Information board on site, as of 2012.
  12. ↑ a b c d Matthias Friske, p. 164 f.
  13. ^ Rudolf Schmidt, pp. 82f, 84.
  14. ↑ Quoted from Rudolf Schmidt, p. 89.
  15. ↑ Quoted from Rudolf Schmidt, p. 90.
  16. ↑ a b Rudolf Schmidt, p. 89 ff.
  17. ^ Office Märkische Schweiz. Oberbarnim.
  18. ↑ Evangelisches Gesangbuch , No. 179. Cf. Christoph Albrecht: Introduction to the Liturgy. Göttingen 1998, pp. 44-46.
  19. ^ Matthias Friske, p. 399 f.
  20. ↑ The secret of the chessboard pieces
  21. ^ Organ builder in Brandenburg
  22. ↑ Rudolf Schmidt, p. 90.

Coordinates: 52 ° 36 ′ 25 ″  N , 14 ° 2 ′ 14 ″  E