Church of the Redeemer (Jerusalem)
The Church of the Redeemer ( English Church of the Redeemer , Arabic الكنيسة اللوثرية, Hebrew כנסית הגואל) is a German Protestant church in Jerusalem . It was built in the years 1893–1898 on the plan of the Crusader Church of S. Maria Latina .
location
The Church of the Redeemer is located in the center of Jerusalem's old town , in Muristan , immediately south of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher . On the north side of the Church of the Redeemer, the last part of Via Dolorosa runs , which ends at the neighboring Church of the Holy Sepulcher. To the east runs Souk el-Lahhanin , to the south the close provost and the Martin Luther School in. To the west of the church is Muristanstrasse (formerly Kronprinz-Friedrich-Wilhelm-Strasse), which is unusually wide for the old town, and the Muristan bazaar.
prehistory
The church was built on part of the site occupied by the Hospice of the Order of St. John in the Middle Ages . The church of Santa Maria Latina , which belonged to the Benedictine order , stood in the same place . The Benedictine monastery and the Johanniter hospice developed into two independent institutions during the crusader period. The Johanniter used the St. John's Church in Muristan , after which the order was named, for their services .
Jerusalem was almost forgotten as a pilgrimage destination for Europeans in the times after the Reformation . That only changed with the emergence of the revival movements in the first half of the 19th century. The romanticizing King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia saw a field of activity here. In 1841 Great Britain and Prussia established a joint diocese of Jerusalem , which existed until 1886 and then divided into an English and a German branch. In 1869, Crown Prince Friedrich III. On the way through to the opening of the Suez Canal , take possession of the strip of land on the eastern edge of Muristan, at the northern end of which was the ruins of the Church of Santa Maria Latina, for Prussia.
After the crown prince returned, the architect Friedrich Adler was commissioned to examine the existing structure. He suggested rebuilding the medieval church and its convent buildings. In the meantime, the enthusiasm for the joint German-English diocese had evaporated, and the disputes about its dissolution or continued existence, the construction project initially remained idle for 20 years. When the diocese was dissolved in 1886, the funds freed up were available to the German side to use for the construction. Kaiser Wilhelm II took office in 1888 and proved to be a sponsor of the project from the start. He promoted the reconstruction of the castle church in Wittenberg , which was also restored from its ruinous state , a construction project also supervised by Friedrich Adler. It was inaugurated on Reformation Day , October 31, 1892, in the presence of the emperor: a demonstration of evangelical unity. Wilhelm II then sent the Wittenberg team - in addition to Friedrich Adler, the site manager and architect Paul Groth - to Jerusalem to continue the demonstration of evangelical unity with the building of the Church of the Redeemer and to put the emperor in line with Constantine the Great , who The neighboring Church of the Holy Sepulcher had been built 1500 years earlier.
More was added: the Jaffa – Jerusalem railway had been in operation since 1892 . For the first time, Jerusalem was relatively easy to reach, both for those involved in the construction and for external building materials. And the archaeological interest in the subsoil on which this was to be built had increased considerably in the context of the emerging modern archeology and research on the life of Jesus .
building
construction
Paul Groth (1859–1955) arrived in Jerusalem in 1893 and in the same year laid the foundation stone for the building of the Church of the Redeemer. He first began to prepare the construction site. He was able to recover a few parts of the medieval church of Santa Maria Latina. The found medieval foundations , however, turned out to be too weak to support the new building. They had to be completely rebuilt. This was done on the plan of the medieval church. For the new foundations, 11-meter-deep trenches were dug through the tell structure of the subsoil down to the rock. The excavators supposedly came across the Jerusalem city wall from the time of Jesus . Today we know that there was only a retaining wall in the originally steeply sloping terrain, because the wall has only one visible side. This “city wall” seemed to be the proof that the area on which the Church of the Holy Sepulcher stands today actually lay in front of the city wall. This seemed to confirm the authenticity of the tradition of the place of Golgotha . The Erlöserkirche housed a kind of structural “relic” in its underground. Although its floor plan is identical to that of the medieval church of Santa Maria Latina, the floor level of the Church of the Redeemer is about two meters higher than that of its predecessor. This roughly corresponds to the site assignment that had taken place here in the meantime.
shape
The Church of the Redeemer was built facing east in a neo-Romanesque style. It deliberately included Romanesque components of the medieval crusader church, in particular the former main portal of the Santa Maria Latina church, which faces north and is no longer used today. Some of its jewelry also dates from the Middle Ages. A light ocher-colored limestone from the area around Jerusalem was used as the material for the new building . The stones were built as uniformly large, serially manufactured cuboids , in stark contrast to medieval building. The capitals in the church are also completely uniform . They were made based on the model of the only surviving capital from the previous building.
The church is a three-aisled basilica with a transept that is not on the flight extends the aisles. The central nave is higher than the side aisles, the crossing is vaulted by a dome . All three aisles end in the east with apses , with that of the central nave being deeper than that of the aisles. The northern outer wall and the apses are broken through by a few, small, arched windows. Most of the daylight falls through the rose window on the west wall and the eight windows in the tambour of the dome. Today's main portal in the west of the church is - like the west facade - a new creation by Friedrich Adler. In the tympanum of the west portal is a medallion with the Lamb of God , accompanied by the coat of arms of the Hohenzollern and the Order of St. John.
The tower of the church is a dominant part of the silhouette of the old city of Jerusalem. It is based on a second draft by Friedrich Adler, the first draft of which the Kaiser had not approved. In any case, the drawing of the second draft is signed by the emperor as "approved" and is formally based on the tower of the Holy Sepulcher. The tower was ringed by three bells in the striking tones D sharp 1 , F sharp 1 and A sharp 1 , which is coordinated with the bells of the Dormition Church . The caster was Franz Schilling from Apolda , who also cast the bells for the Church of the Assumption . From the tower you have a good panoramic view of the old city of Jerusalem.
The interior of the church is divided into three bays by six pillars and the transept of the same size.
inauguration
On Reformation Day (October 31), 1898, the Church of the Redeemer was inaugurated by Kaiser Wilhelm II and Empress Auguste Victoria as part of his trip to Palestine and the key was handed over to Friedrich Wilhelm Barkhausen , President of the Evangelical Upper Church Council of the Evangelical Church in the older provinces of Prussia . Wilhelm II was the first modern western ruler to set foot in Jerusalem. So that he could do this on horseback, the historic city wall next to the Jaffa Gate was broken. The sermon for the dedication service was based on the Bible verse, which also explains the name of the church:
- Because there is one God and a mediator between God and man, namely the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself for redemption for all, which would be preached in his time. (1. Tim. 2,5f).
The building inscription on the wall of the north aisle reads:
- In the name of God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen! This house of God is consecrated to our Lord Jesus Christ the Redeemer of the world, built where the church of St. Mary was once built by the knightly order of St. John of the Hospital in Jerusalem. For centuries the site lay in ruins, until in 1869, after the birth of the Lord, it was given to the King of Prussia, later German Emperor, Wilhelm the Great, and for him by Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, later Kaiser Friedrich III., Was taken into possession. On the orders of the German Emperor and King of Prussia, Wilhelm II, this church was built between 1893 and 1898 and on the 31st day of October 1898 it was given its sacred purpose in the presence of the German Empress and Queen of Prussia, Auguste Victoria.
Structural changes
1970–73 the church was fundamentally redesigned by Ernst W. Krüger . The reason was that the damage to the building from the Israeli War of Independence of 1948 and the Six Day War of 1967 urgently needed to be repaired. Ernst W. Krüger felt connected to the modern church building, which preferred smooth, "white" interiors at that time. Monument protection aspects compared to the traditional and then despised historic building stock played no role. The painting of the interior, which was partly in bold colors, was removed. The central apse was originally completely painted, among other things with the saying: Jesus Christ yesterday and today and the same also in eternity ( Heb 13,8 LUT ), the motto of the Gustav Adolf Foundation , which is particularly concerned with the Protestant communities in the Diaspora cares. Only the mosaic of the head of Christ , which was created by the mosaic company Puhl & Wagner in Berlin-Neukölln , remained in the central apse . The pulpit has also been redesigned and some of its historic furnishings have been removed. The altar in the apse was removed and a new one was built in the crossing. The battlements that adorned the outside of the dome of the church were also removed, as water had repeatedly penetrated there. The modern stained glass windows were complemented by the Jewish glass painter Anna Andersch-Marcus from Hamburg . The original stained glass windows with ornamental design were largely destroyed by the armed conflicts in 1948 and 1967. The organ was also recreated in 1971 by the Berlin organ builder workshop Karl Schuke as part of this redesign .
Also in 1970–74 archaeological excavations were carried out under the Church of the Redeemer. The result was, among other things, that there are no remains of the city wall from the time of Jesus, as assumed. Rather, the aforementioned wall has been identified as a retaining wall and a historic quarry has been found. A garden use was established for the strata that can be assigned to the time of Jesus. Both are uses that can be assumed in front of the city wall. This supports the theory that Golgotha could have been located where the Church of the Holy Sepulcher stands today. During the archaeological excavations, the remains of the church of Santa Maria Latina were secured.
The apse of the south aisle has served as a peace chapel since 1991, which is dedicated to prayer for peace in the region.
Outbuildings
South of the church, the provost building was erected in 1910 by the Berlin government builder Robert Leibnitz . The ruins of the medieval monastery buildings that were still there until then were partially demolished and partially incorporated into the new building, such as the cloister , the “Johanniterkapelle” and the “ Refektorium ”. The neo-Romanesque forms of this building are much more freely designed than those of the church, and blocks of different sizes and with an irregular surface were also used.
In addition to the office of the provost and the Evangelical Congregation of the German Language in Jerusalem , the bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land has his seat in the provost building. Originally, the building housed the German Evangelical Institute for Classical Studies of the Holy Land with the office of his first Head Gustaf Dalman .
The medieval cloister included in the complex is two-story and forms the inner courtyard of the building complex. To the south is the "Johanniterkapelle" (formerly also: "Crusader Chapel"), originally probably the refectory of the Benedictine monastery located there. On the east side of the cloister is the "refectory", whose medieval use is unclear and which is now used as a community hall and for receptions.
In the extension of the provost's escape, a school was planned to be built in the same style, a building that was no longer built due to the First World War . It was not until much later that today's Martin Luther School was built on the property, now moved backwards.
Archaeological park under the Church of the Redeemer
On November 1st, 2012 the archaeological park "Through the Times" was opened, which documents more than 2,000 years of history of the city of Jerusalem under the nave of the Church of the Redeemer.
The excavations carried out by Conrad Schick in 1893 and Ute Wagner-Lux (the then director of the DEI) and Karel Vriezen 1970–1974 were prepared by the German Evangelical Institute for Classical Studies of the Holy Land (DEI) in the years 2009–2012 for the visitor 3D animations and light effects to present the different stages of construction and development of Jerusalem and to make them tangible. In the adjacent cloister of the provost house, a museum holds further information and exhibits on the city's history.
organ
The organ was built in 1971 by the organ building workshop Karl Schuke (Berlin) on the newly built west gallery. It replaced an instrument that had been built in 1898 by the organ builder Ferdinand Dinse (Berlin). In 1984 the organ's disposition was expanded to include three reed stops. Today the instrument has 21 stops on two manuals and a pedal . The playing and stop actions are mechanical.
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P
local community
→ Main article: Evangelical German language congregation in Jerusalem
The "Evangelical German Language Congregation in Jerusalem" - today a congregation abroad of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) - used the so-called "Crusader Chapel" on the first floor of the cloister until the Church of the Redeemer was inaugurated on July 16, 1871 as a German-Evangelical chapel as a worship room.
The Church of the Redeemer is also a place of worship for the Arabic-speaking and English-speaking Jerusalem congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land. In addition, the small Danish-speaking evangelical community in Jerusalem celebrates its services in these rooms.
carrier
Today the Erlöserkirche is owned by the German Evangelical Jerusalem Foundation , based in Hanover . Their management lies with the Church Office of the EKD (Church External Office).
Web links
literature
- Hans Wilhelm Hertzberg (Hrsg.): Jerusalem - history of a community. Expanded and re-edited by J. Friedrich, Kassel 1965 / Jerusalem 1990.
- Jürgen Krüger : Evangelical Church of the Redeemer Jerusalem. Regensburg 1997, ISBN 3-7954-6074-3 (= Schnell Kunstführer Nr. 2310).
- Jürgen Krüger: Rome and Jerusalem. Church building ideas of the Hohenzollern in the 19th century. Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-05-002427-5 . on Google Books: "The Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem"
- Ernst von Mirbach : The journey of the emperor and the empress to Palestine. Three lectures held in Potsdam on the best of the deaconess wards of the St. Josephs Hospital and the Auguste-Viktoria-Nativity . Berlin 1899.
- Thorsten Neubert-Preine : The founding of German protestant institutions in Jerusalem during the reign of Kaiser Wilhelm II. In: Haim Goren (Ed.): Germany in the Middle East. Past, Present and Future. Jerusalem 2003, ISBN 965-493-159-1 , pp. 27-40.
- Thorsten Neubert-Preine: 100 years of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem. Jerusalem 1998. (exhibition catalog)
- Thorsten Preine: The Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem. The history of its origins in the field of tension between national and denominational rivalries in 19th century Jerusalem. Vechta 1996. (Master's thesis at the University of Vechta)
- Thorsten Preine: It's a miracle before our eyes. 100 years of the Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem. In: Messages from ecumenism and work abroad. Hannover / Breklum 1998, ISBN 3-7793-1020-1 , pp. 194-199.
- Thorsten Preine: La querelle du Muristan et la fondation de l'eglise du Rédempteur à Jérusalem. In: Dominique Trimbur, Ran Aaronsohn (eds.): De Bonaparte à Balfour. La France, l'Europe occidentale et la Palestine 1799-1917. 2nd Edition. Paris 2008, ISBN 978-2-271-06671-8 , pp. 365-380.
- Denys Pringle: The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. A corpus. Vol. 3. The City of Jerusalem. Cambridge 2010, pp. 168-182.
- Karl-Heinz Ronecker , Jens Nieper, Thorsten Neubert-Preine (eds.): To honor the savior of the world. Festschrift for the centenary of the inauguration of the Evangelical Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem. Leipzig 1998, ISBN 3-374-01706-1 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Denys Pringle: The Churches of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. , Cambridge 2010, p. 239.
- ^ Pringle, p. 236
- ^ Kruger, Rome and Jerusalem, p. 65
- ↑ Recording of the full bells
- ↑ Max Küchler, Klaus Bieberstein: Jerusalem. A handbook and study guide to the Holy City . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2014, ISBN 978-3-525-50173-3 , pp. 332 .
- ↑ Exhibition "Through the Times"
- ^ Research history and development of the exhibition ( Memento from July 17, 2018 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Information on the organ
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