Evangelical Christ Church (Bozen)

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The Protestant Church in Gries
Postcard from 1910 of the Evangelical Christ Church in the former market town of Gries near Bozen
The interior of the Evangelical Christ Church

The Evangelical Christ Church in Bozen - Gries is the church of the Evangelical Lutheran Congregation Bozen. This has around 500 registered members and extends from the Brenner to Lake Garda ; the western part of this area includes the neighboring parish of Merano.

history

Since the Tolerance Patent of 1781, Lutherans in Austria have been allowed to practice their religion freely, provided that they can prove a following of 500 members or 100 families. In Tyrol , however, 436 Zillertal Protestants had to leave their homeland because of their beliefs in 1837 . Only the Protestant patent issued under Emperor Franz Josef on April 8, 1861 enabled the public exercise of the Protestant faith in Tyrol. As a result, Protestant churches were built in Merano in 1885 ( Christ Church ), in Arco in 1899 and in Innsbruck in 1906 .

In Bozen or in the neighboring spa town of Gries, a plot of villas was acquired for construction in 1903. The Protestant church building association encountered resistance from the Gries wine growers, which led to the refusal of the building permit by the community of Gries. Only with the help of their lawyer, the Mayor of Bolzano Julius Perathoner , was the church building association able to assert its rights before the Administrative Court in 1905 .

The Christ Church was built in the neo-Gothic style between 1906 and 1908 under the supervision of the Berlin architect Hermann Ende . On January 4th, 1945 the church was bombed by American planes. It burned down in the following days. Only the tower and the outer walls remained. After the war, the outer building was restored to its old form and re-inaugurated on October 20, 1952.

Equipment of the church

A relief (Christ) by the Bolzano stone sculptor Andreas Kompatscher is located above the main portal . The interior of the church received a simple, smooth wooden ceiling in the course of the rebuilding after the destruction. The walls were painted white. The artistic highlight is the furnishing of the choir room with concrete glass windows by the Stuttgart artist Christian Oehler.

Current

Michael Jäger has been the Evangelical Lutheran pastor of Bozen since September 1, 2017.

literature

  • Josef Weingartner : The art monuments Bolzano . Vienna-Augsburg: Hölzel 1926, p. 210 (online)
  • Festschrift 100 years of the Evangelical Lutheran Congregation - 90 years of the Evangelical Christ Church. Bolzano 1998.
  • Hans H. Reimer: Lutheran in South Tyrol: History of the Evangelical Congregation Meran. A search for traces of Protestantism in South Tyrol and Trentino , Edition Raetia, Bozen 2009. ISBN 978-88-7283-332-2
  • Jürgen Krüger : The Evangelical Lutheran Christ Church in Bozen - a church on the way to modernity , arte factum Verlag, Karlsruhe 2010.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Josef Fontana: Der Kulturkampf in Tirol , Athesia, Bozen 1978, p. 21
  2. ↑ Jürgen Krüger: The Evangelical Lutheran Christ Church in Bozen , p. 6
  3. ↑ Festschrift 100 Years of the Evangelical Lutheran Congregation - 90 Years of the Evangelical Christ Church , p. 28
  4. ↑ Jürgen Krüger: The Evangelical Lutheran Christ Church in Bozen , p. 20
  5. ↑ Jürgen Krüger: The Evangelical Lutheran Christ Church in Bozen , p. 12
  6. ↑ Jürgen Krüger: The Evangelical Lutheran Christ Church in Bozen , p. 36

Web links

Commons : Evangelical Christ Church (Bozen)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 46 ° 30 ′ 17.6 "  N , 11 ° 20 ′ 32.3"  E