Michelsdorf village church
The Protestant village church Michelsdorf is a Romanesque stone church from the 12th century in Michelsdorf , a district of the municipality of Kloster Lehnin in the district of Potsdam-Mittelmark in the state of Brandenburg . The church belongs to the church circle center Mark Brandenburg of the Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Oberlausitz . The Brandenburg State Office for the Preservation of Monuments and the State Archaeological Museum (BLDAM) indicates in its database that the church only received the patronage of St. Michael in 1946 .
location
The old village street runs parallel to the south past Highway 86. She goes into the road in its eastern end to Muhlenberg over. The church stands on the northeastern edge of the village on an elevated plot of land that is not fenced in . According to Theo Engeser and Konstanze Stehr, this comparatively unusual location could be related to the fact that the place was desolate for almost 50 years after the Thirty Years' War .
history
The construction of the church probably started in the 12th century. The apse , the choir and the approach of the nave were created . This was completed in the first half of the 13th century with the western wall. The tower substructure was also built in the 13th century, while the masonry above the eaves height of the nave is probably a little more recent. At that time, Michaelsdorf was the mother church for Tegdasdorf, which later fell into desolation, and was first mentioned in a document in 1372. Michaelsdorf was a parish village in 1442 and was added to Netzen as a branch church before 1527 . The church patronage was with the Lehnin monastery until 1542 , then with the elector or the office.
In the Thirty Years' War the place fell into desolation, so that the church was probably also badly damaged and fell into disrepair. In 1777, the nave and choir received a uniform gable roof under the direction of the master carpenter Johan Jacob Adler . To do this, the eastern gable was widened, raised and placed on buttresses . The BLDAM refers to existing building files for the year of execution and points out that the year 1772, which is occasionally given in the literature, is incorrect. Presumably at this time the interior was also whitewashed, the arched windows enlarged and the original windows added. In 1826 master mason Hauck and master carpenter Schulze carried out repairs. Subsequently, the building inspector Schneider planned a renovation of the church from 1855, which was changed by the government master builder Horn and carried out by the master mason Zabel from Lehnin between 1859 and 1860. The new main entrance on the west side and the two windows on the north and south sides of the tower were created. Zabel used bricks from Rathenow for the soffit . The gallery was extended into the tower in order to be able to offer more believers a seat. In 1908 the master painter C. Rätzel from Lehnin repainted the interior.
The church was damaged in World War II and the interior was redesigned in 1946. The windows in the apse were opened again, as was the priest's gate . Craftsmen erected a new altar , moved the pulpit and removed the stalls. The church received a new painting consisting of angel figures, inscriptions and ornamental decorations on the window frames. In the same year the church received the St. Michael patronage. The re-inauguration took place on September 29, 1946. Around 1958 a winter church was built below the west gallery according to a plan from 1952 . In 2001 the interior was renovated.
Building description
The building was essentially made of field stones , which were worked more or less carefully depending on the construction period. The approximately 6.3 m wide, semicircular, approx. 2.2 m arched apse is strongly indented, there the stones are roughly square and layered. There are three small arched windows that are likely from the construction period. They were blocked earlier but reopened in 1946.
The choir has also moved in. Numerous repair work can be seen on the east wall. The apse roofing was significantly higher at an earlier point in time, and the approaches with which the choir was widened can also be seen. The buttresses required for this were mainly made of brick. On the north wall there was presumably a window that was replaced by a newly broken, pressed-segment-arched window. This work was also carried out on the south side. It is conceivable that there used to be two windows here. A priest's gate is offset to the west , which should be originally.
This is followed by the nave . It is around 11.30 m long and around 9.90 m wide. In the eastern part, the field stones are still roughly square, while in the rest of the building they were rather well carved. On the north side there are two pressed-segment arched windows, the reveal of which has been repaired with brick . The remains of a small window from the construction period can be seen in the center. Likewise, the window to the west cuts the arch of another window that is also clogged. It is therefore conceivable that the ship originally had three windows on the north side. A similar picture emerges on the south side. Here, too, the remains of the Romanesque windows can be seen, with two large windows in between. Slightly off-center to the west is a clogged community gate with carefully hewn drapery and arch stones.
The west tower has a rectangular floor plan, also 9.90 m wide and 6.20 m long. It can be entered from the west through a simple but pointed arched portal. It was created in 1859/1860 from profiled, reddish industrial bricks. Inside is a doubled-up door leaf with a diamond pattern from the 18th century. On the north and south side there is an ogival window in the lower area. The church tower is comparatively low and merges into the attic at the height of the roof ridge of the nave . There is a transverse hipped roof into which a dormer with a sound arcade has been incorporated on the south side .
Furnishing
The altar was rebuilt in 1946 from sandstone slabs by Michelsdorf bricklayer Andert. He used an older inscription stone in the base. Behind it is a large, wooden crucifix by EG Jäger from Berlin-Nikolassee; also from 1946. The fifth from around 1908 stands on a wooden stand. The pulpit with a five-sided pulpit was essentially built in the 18th century and has been moved and changed several times. In 1946 it came from the west of the north side of the choir to the south side. A sound cover was installed over it.
The other church furnishings include four canvas paintings. They show a person with a globe, with a sword, reading a book and a group of listeners and come from the painter Detlef Kastens , who created the work in 2001. In the nave there are two large wheel candlesticks and a small one in the choir; all from around 1950. On the gallery there is a memorial plaque for those who died in the wars of liberation .
On the west gallery is an organ that Gottlieb Heise from Potsdam built in 1841. The instrument has six registers , a manual and a pedal . It is installed in a three-part, box-shaped prospectus with a new painting. The gallery was to be extended in 1883 by master mason J. Jacob from Cammer; but this was not realized.
A small bronze bell from 1701 hangs in the tower. It has a diameter of 45 cm and bears the inscriptions “ANNO 1701 GOSS MICH JOHANN JACOB SCHULTZ IN BERLIN” and “THE SWISS COLONIES IN MICHELSDORFF IS THIS BELL FROM THE COMBIBLE REFORM: CANTONS FREIYGEBIG SUBMITTED COLLECTEN MONEY HAVE BEEN GIVEN ”. Another bell made of cast steel was made in 1962.
The interior is provided with a simple plaster ceiling; the apse calotte was painted blue. The baroque roof with mortised timbers and a small rafter spacing has a hanging structure with pointed columns. The walls are painted with two larger than life angels. In contrast, the inscriptions in the western part of the choir walls and a large depiction of the Archangel Michael slaying the dragon in the northeast corner of the ship were whitewashed.
Appreciation
The BLDAM honors the building from “one of the few Romanesque churches in the region that has been preserved in its overall shape.” It indicates that it is one of the oldest buildings in the Zauche , but at the same time striking due to its remote location, which can be traced back to the Thirty Years War is. The BLDAM praises the “remarkable carpentry work of the baroque roof and the charming little bronze bell from 1701”, while at the same time pointing out that it is one of the “earliest post-war church renovations in the area”.
literature
- Georg Dehio (edited by Gerhard Vinken et al.): Handbook of German Art Monuments - Brandenburg Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-422-03123-4 .
Web links
- Entry in the monument database of the State of Brandenburg
- Michelsdorf (Protestant village church) , website of Theo Engeser and Konstanze Stehr, accessed on April 26, 2020.
Coordinates: 53 ° 18 ′ 36.7 ″ N , 12 ° 42 ′ 3 ″ E