Church of the Redeemer (Berlin-Moabit)
The Protestant Church of the Redeemer in the Berlin district of Moabit ( Mitte district ) was built in the years 1909–1912 according to plans by the architects Dinklage , Paulus & Lilloe . Together with the parish hall, which was completed in 1913, it forms a monument complex. The Evangelical Church of the Redeemer belongs to the Evangelical Church Community Berlin-Tiergarten and thus to the Church District Berlin Stadtmitte (KKBS) of the Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia (EKBO).
location
The building, together with the adjoining parish hall, stands parallel to the Spree at Wikingerufer 9/10 at the corner of Levetzowstrasse on a 45,000 m² plot of land, the shape of which can be described as an irregular pentagon. Later extensions and residential buildings adjoin the parish hall on the Wikingerufer and form a quiet, enclosed inner courtyard with a transverse wing leading to Levetzowstrasse. The main axis of the building complex lies roughly in a west-east direction. A small church forecourt on the north-western narrow side leads to the main church entrance. The Gotzkowsky Bridge is in the immediate vicinity . On the north side of the church building in Levetzowstraße, a long row of buildings was added without gaps in the 1920s, which until recently housed the Berlin State Picture Center and continues in the same architectural style in the Heinrich von Kleist School building. These additions take up the height of the nave and adapt to the church with the clinkered facade.
history
At the beginning of the 20th century, the number of inhabitants in Berlin and its peripheral areas at that time had grown rapidly due to rapid industrialization and the associated influx of workers from other parts of Germany. In the settlement area of Moabit, which later became the Tiergarten district , several thousand evangelical people had to be looked after, who initially belonged to the Heilandsgemeinde . On April 28, 1904 , the city synod decided to purchase a piece of land for the construction of a new church with an associated parish hall. The parish council of the Heilandsgemeinde entrusted the joint office of the architects August Dinklage , Ernst Paulus and Olaf Lilloe with the planning and subsequent execution of the buildings.
Upon application, Kaiser Wilhelm II approved the name Erlöserkirche as summus episcopus of the Evangelical Church of the older provinces of Prussia for the new sacred building on August 19, 1909 . On November 18, 1909, the foundation stone was laid by Wilhelm Faber , General Superintendent for Berlin. After just 17 months, the new church could be inaugurated with a cantata on Sunday, May 14, 1911, in the presence of Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia .
When it was separated from the Heilandsgemeinde in 1912, the Redeemer Congregation became an independent church district with around 14,000 members. The property became the property of the new municipality.
Between September 1, 1912 and October 8, 1913, the parish hall, a nursing home and a toddler school, a forerunner of today's day care center, with 15 places, were completed and inaugurated. These buildings are also based on designs by the architects mentioned.
Around the same time, from late summer 1912 to May 1913, the well-known theologian and religious philosopher Paul Tillich also worked as an assistant preacher at the Church of the Redeemer.
During the Second World War , the Erlöserkirche and a large part of the parish hall were badly damaged in an air raid in November 1943. Church services were no longer possible here, so they took place initially in a room in the nurses' station and later in a neighboring casino. Because of the damage, the absence of children and the lack of teachers, the kindergarten had to be closed.
The first repairs were not carried out until three years after the end of the war and the kindergarten was reopened with 30 places. Large scaffolding saved the dilapidated twin tower from collapsing and the three preserved bells called for a service in March 1950 for the first time since 1943.
The new city administration in West Berlin enabled the Church of the Redeemer, which now had 9,200 members again, to rebuild with financial support. In 1953 the parish hall was repaired first, and in 1956 the church building was rebuilt under the direction of the architect Walter Krüger . This happened according to the original plans and was completed on March 9, 1958. Bishop Otto Dibelius handed the rebuilt church over to the congregation in a festive service that day.
It took a few more decades until all the ancillary rooms could be furnished and used again.
In addition, the Redeemer Congregation was expanded to include Christians from the eastern part of the Charlottenburg Gustav Adolf Congregation to 12,000 members (1965). For foreign guest workers, mainly from Greece in the Moabit area , the community opened its own kindergarten in Helmholtzstrasse in 1972, and two years later the young church members also received a community center with the Zinse youth center .
A parish partnership with the Protestant parish of Eichwalde , which existed until the beginning of the 1990s, has meanwhile "fallen asleep".
Since January 1, 2016, the Erlöserkirche has been part of the Evangelical Parish of Tiergarten, which was created through the merger of the four previously independent parishes of Erlöser, Moabit-West, Kaiser-Friedrich-Gedächtnis and St. Johannis.
Church building
The architectural design draws on the Brandenburg brick Gothic style and has only a few decorative elements. The building is a hall church with a westwork , a side aisle and a baptistery in the southern area under the gallery. In particular, the West plant architecture quoted altmärkischer churches, such as the Stendaler Dom or St. Petri in Seehausen . Until it was destroyed, the component facing the Viking Bank carried two transverse gable roofs over the aisle. On the west corner rises the 37.50 meter high bell tower with two tower tops, the steep tops of which are covered with sheet copper. The tower massif houses the three-part bell in an arcade-like bell hall above the church tower clock. When it was first inaugurated, the building was given three bronze bells, one of which showed a crack after it was cast. The damage could be repaired, but it affects the clean sound and even led to a price reduction.
The main entrance has a wide pointed arch , the tympanum of which is adorned with a copper Luther rose .
Interior of the church
Main nave
The main nave occupies an area of around 250 m² and is closed on its south-east side by the altar apse , a transverse rectangular chancel. In the first construction there was a multi-part lead glass window across the entire width of the altar wall , under which a colored ornament tapestry formed the background for the altar. When it was rebuilt in the early 1950s, the altar apse was given a simpler look, the round arch was removed and the pedestal reduced to one step. The current six-part window was designed by Hans-Joachim Burgert with biblical motifs in a modern design language for the new interior design in 1953. The upper end of the choir room was given a six-part ribbon window with mosaic-like light or dark blue glass squares.
The simulated barrel vault ceiling that existed before the destruction was replaced by a smooth wood-paneled ceiling. There is a tiled gable roof over the church hall , the gables to the bank were not rebuilt. The gallery in the side aisle receives daylight through arched windows. The pastel-colored mosaic windows are lined up in five segments each on two floors, thus dividing the building areas facing the Spree.
Together with the pews in the main aisle and the podium-like rows of benches in the gallery, the church offers space for around 600 people.
Columns, arches and wall surfaces in the altar apse were painted with colored ornaments in the initial design. During the reconstruction there were instead twelve round wall lamps ("portholes"), six each on both long sides and on the narrow side above the entrance area. In 2005, the neon lights were given a completely new look, with scenes from the Old and New Testaments and sentences about the Savior being presented in a modern way on their glass surfaces . The idea and artistic execution come from Hans-Joachim Burgert.
Below there are some oil wall paintings at eye level with similar subjects in traditional church paintings , which come from donations from other communities.
organ
When it was inaugurated, the church had an organ that was lost due to the destruction in World War II. On October 20, 1963, a new organ from Karl Schuke's Berlin workshop (Opus 136) was inaugurated. The instrument has 23 registers (around 2000 pipes ) on two manuals and a pedal . The key actions are mechanical, the stop actions are electrical.
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Bells
The Church of the Redeemer has three cast steel bells from the construction period.
| Bell jar | material | Chime | Casting year | Bell foundry | Weight (kg) |
Diameter ( cm) |
Height (cm) |
inscription |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Cast steel | b ′ | 1910 | Bochum Association | 354 | 93 | 80 | DELIVER US FROM EVIL. MATTH. 8.18. |
| 2. | Cast steel | G' | 1910 | Bochum Association | 676 | 116 | 93 | I KNOW THAT MY SAVIOUR IS ALIVE. JOB 19.25. |
| 3. | Cast steel | it' | 1910 | Bochum Association | 1270 | 144 | 115 | PRAISE THE LORD, FOR HE HAS VISITED AND REDEEMED HIS PEOPLE. LUC. 1.68. |
The parish hall
On the south-eastern side of the church there is a parish hall, also made of red bricks, and with its five floors it towers over the central nave of the church. The increase by one floor took place during the reconstruction after the war damage. The ground floor houses the choir and daycare center, while the upper floors contain offices, service apartments and freely rented apartments. The architectural elements such as the compact tower, the small arched windows and semicircular bay windows are based on the style of the Stendal Cathedral .
Use of the church building, community life, social commitment
Besides the normal liturgical use, including baptisms, confirmations, weddings or funerals, the church as a venue for regular concerts and church music with organ serves devotions . There is a children's, a youth and a senior choir, as well as a wind section and a trombone choir. At the working level of the trumpet choir there are connections to Ev.-Luth. Parish Flintbek . Coffee afternoons, discussion rounds, book readings and joint excursions are organized for parishioners and guests. Numerous working groups offer a varied community life. A regularly published donation-financed “community letter” with a print run of 4,000 copies provides detailed information about current events but also about interesting individual topics.
The large hall of the parish hall serves as a “late night café” in the winter months, where the homeless and welfare recipients receive a free meal twice a week. The Church of the Redeemer participates with the Laib und Seele campaign in the distribution of food at the Berliner Tafel . Every Thursday, people in need from the community area (Moabit and Charlottenburg to the Landwehr Canal ) can purchase a bag of groceries for one euro.
In 2005, the Erlöserkirche founded the Center for Interreligious Dialogue together with eleven other religious communities in the Moabit-West area , which became known to the public with the so-called "Moabiter Declaration - For peaceful coexistence in Moabit!"
As part of the intercultural dialogue, the community room has been available to both a Protestant community with African roots and a Protestant student community with Korean roots for their services since 2005 .
The Erlöserkirche can be reached by public transport, the underground ( Ernst-Reuter-Platz or Hansaplatz train stations ) or the buses on lines 101, 106 and 245 ( Alt-Moabit / Gotzkowskybrücke stop ). All buildings and rooms are barrier-free .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Architectural monuments Ev. Church of the Redeemer with parish hall
- ^ Homepage of the pastor i. R. Wolfgang Massalsky
- ^ Homepage of the Gustav-Adolf-Kirchengemeinde
- ↑ Homepage Ev. Eichwalde Church
- ↑ a b c d e Information from the GKR on March 31, 2010
- ↑ Homepage Berlin church towers by Ernst-Jürgen Bachus, civil engineer, accessed on March 26, 2010
- ↑ More information on the Schuke organ ( Memento of the original from May 29, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )
- ↑ Homepage of the Redeemer day care center
- ↑ Website with dates for music in churches - here in Moabiter Erlöserkirche , found on February 27, 2010
- ↑ Homepage of the ev.-luth. Parish of Flintbek. Retrieved April 9, 2019 (German).
- ↑ Tobias Schneider: At Christmas, lonely people go to the late night café. Parishes in Moabit give food to welfare recipients / helpers wanted . In: Berliner Zeitung , December 15, 1999
- ↑ Text of the Moabit Declaration and its twelve signatories (PDF; 140 kB), accessed February 27, 2010
- ↑ Homepage Campus Mission International Berlin e. V.
Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '20.4 " N , 13 ° 19' 49.3" E