Schweinrich village church
The Evangelical village church Schweinrich is a stone church from the second half of the 15th century in Schweinrich , a district of the city of Wittstock / Dosse in the district of Ostprignitz-Ruppin in the state of Brandenburg . The church belongs to the parish of Wittstock-Ruppin in Sprengel Potsdam in the Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Oberlausitz .
location
The Wittstocker road runs from west to east direction as the central connecting axis through the town. In its historic center, the church stands on a slightly elevated plot of land, which is enclosed by a wall made of uncut and non-layered field stones .
history
There are different details about the building history and, above all, the function of the church. The parish suspects that the church was built in the 12th or 14th century. She also assumes that the thickness of the walls is a "proof of its ability to defend itself" and that it should have been a fortified church . They also refer to the foundation on a sand hill, which is said to have been surrounded by a swamp area at an earlier time. This natural protection, combined with the location on the Dranser See , is said to have led to the fact that “starvation” should hardly have been possible with good harvests. A large hinge on a window on a south side is said to have served as an entrance; consequently the steeple did not have an entrance door. The Brandenburg State Office for the Preservation of Monuments and the State Archaeological Museum (BLDAM) and the Dehio Handbook , however, assume that construction took place in the second half of the 15th century. It is therefore conceivable that the classification of a fortified church is a misinterpretation. These are to be found above all in the area of so-called Eastern colonization , in which problematic ideas about local history occasionally appear. But it is also conceivable that a previous building was destroyed and then rebuilt. This is indicated by the weather vane on which the year 1391 can be seen. The city of Wittstock / Dosse only speaks of a late Gothic building. Another source puts the building at the beginning of the 16th century. In a newspaper article in the Märkische Allgemeine from 2010 it is even reported that the church tower is said to have been built around 1150 without an entrance at ground level.
The BLDAM continues to describe unspecified renovation work in the 17th and 19th centuries. Presumably, the openings were enlarged in the Baroque period , while arched openings were made on the tower in the 19th century. In 1844 the parish had the south portal added so that additional seats could be set up inside. After the fall of the Wall , the building was repaired in the early 1990s.
Building description
The structure was essentially built from field stones that were uncut and not layered. Reddish bricks were usually used for repair work . The choir is straight and has not moved in. On the east wall in the southern area there is a large, pressed segment arch-shaped window with a soffit made of reddish brick. In the center are the remains of a small, to the north of it the remains of a larger window, which was now covered with bricks and which was formerly pointed arch-shaped. The gable was built entirely of brick and may have been plastered at an earlier time . There are two small openings there.
The nave has a rectangular floor plan. On the north wall there are two large, also pressed segment arch-shaped windows. The craftsmen also used a reddish brick for the reveal. On the south side in the eastern area there is another such window. To the west is a large and ogival gate, which is designed as a panel in the upper third . Inside there is another, pointed arch-shaped gate with a double-tiered pear-stick wall , which is also blocked. Next to it is another window to the west. No statement can therefore be made about the original position of the windows without further investigations. The ship carries a simple gable roof , the eastward hipped is.
To the west is the transverse rectangular west tower , which takes up the full width of the nave. It can be entered from the west through a double-stepped, pointed arched portal with a pear stick. Above are other smaller openings. They are interpreted by the parish to mean that this was a defense. On the one hand, there is a small and high rectangular opening above the gate in the southern area and two other, much smaller openings in the middle floor . On the bell floor there are two arched sound arcades as well as a circular opening to the north and south and a rectangular opening, all of which are blocked. On the north side, roughly level with the eaves of the ship, there is another rectangular opening and a sound arcade on the bell floor. Such a sound arcade was also installed on the south side. Below that, to the west, is another high rectangular opening followed by a small arched window on the east side. There are two sound arcades on the east wall of the church tower. In the past there was a clock in the tower, which is now in the museum in Wittstock / Dosse. In the tower hangs a bell that was cast in Stettin in 1874 . It replaced two bells that had to be given in during the world wars as part of a metal donation by the German people . The tower ends with a transverse hipped roof with a weather vane and the year 1391 and a cross.
Furnishing
The altarpiece is described in the Dehio manual as "magnificent". It consists of a four-storey structure, each consisting of two columns grouped in pairs. It probably dates from the first quarter of the 17th century and, as evidenced by an inscription, was redrafted and supplemented in 1683. The work was probably carried out by Hans Meriahn. The pillars were decorated with side panels from around 1720/1730. The altarpiece shows the Lord's Supper . It is complemented by two laterally attached aedicules , to which further aedicules have been grouped on the two upper floors. There are painted figures of Jesus Christ and the twelve apostles . Above it is a figure of the risen one between two angels.
The wooden pulpit was probably built around the same time and was redesigned by Meriahn in 1683. The polygonal pulpit is decorated with images of the evangelists ; above it round arched aedicula. Above it is a sound cover that is richly decorated and, as evidenced by the Dehio manual, is "formally close to the altar".
The original fifth is no longer there. A baptismal bowl was donated by a villager from around 1900. The other sacrament tableware was also donated by villagers in 1863. Other church furnishings include a wooden preacher's chair from the first quarter of the 17th century and - presumably from the same period - the choir screen and remains of the stalls. In the east wall is a medieval sacrament niche . On the west gallery is an organ with a three-part prospectus from 1901. The builder Albert Hollenbach created an instrument with a manual and six stops . It was repaired in 1965 and 1966 by the Alexander Schuke Potsdam Orgelbau company . Below the gallery is a small winter church . There is a harmonium there . The building has a beamed ceiling.
South in front of the church, a memorial commemorates those who fell from the First World War . To the southwest, a boulder with a plaque reminds of Helmut Schönberg, who died in 2004. He was mayor of Schweinrich and for many years chairman of the citizens' initiative FREIe HEIDe, which successfully campaigned against further use of the Wittstock military training area . For many years the church was the starting point for numerous protest marches.
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
Individual evidence
- ↑ Church Schweinrich Website of the parish Dranse of the Evangelical Church District Wittstock-Ruppin, accessed on January 12, 2019.
- ↑ Schweinrich Church , website of the city of Wittstock / Dosse, accessed on January 3, 2019.
- ↑ Wolf-Dietrich Meyer-Rath: The churches and chapels of the Prignitz: ways in a Brandenburg cultural landscape . Lukas Verlag, August 18, 2016, ISBN 978-3-86732-253-9 , p. 167–.
- ↑ a b The Schweinrich village church is in excellent condition despite its old age , article from the Märkische Allgemeine from June 12, 2010, published on the website of the sponsorship group Alte Kirchen Berlin-Brandenburg, accessed on December 31, 2018.
Coordinates: 53 ° 10 ′ 42.9 " N , 12 ° 37 ′ 56.7" E