Evangelical parish Dobrzyca
The Evangelical Parish in Dobrzyca was founded in the 19th century in the province of Poznan .
history
In the 16th century there were first Protestant parishes in the area of Koschmin (Koźmin) and Pleschen (Pleszew) . The citizens of Koschmin , Dobrzyca, the surrounding Hauländereien and villages tried from 1775 to have their own Evangelical parish Dobrzyca and a parish with the Evangelical Church . The influx of Protestant Christians who settled in the Dobrzyca area made it necessary to found a new parish. With the later of Prussia realized land development program, the need to separate increased from the parish Koschmin by the influx of other Protestant settlers.
On February 6, 1786, the heads of the church council from Koschmin and the community representatives of the Hauländereien Izbiczno, Wola, Wilsza, Strzyzew, Karmin and Koschmin again petitioned the Protestant consistory in Fraustadt and asked for the establishment of a new parish in Dobrzyca. At the same time they handed over the declaration of consent from the landlord of Dobrzyca, Count von Gorzenski.
On March 15, 1787, the evangelical consistory gave its consent. The efforts of the citizens initially failed because of the landowner von Koschmin, Field Marshal Graf von Kalkreuth, who was against the establishment of a new parish in Dobrzyca. In 1799 the incumbent pastor Faustel of the parish Koschmin was looking for a substitute due to illness. General von Kalkreuth, landlady of Koschmin, suggested Pastor Karge. On November 24, 1799, representatives of Dobrzyca and the surrounding Hauländereien approved this choice. In 1795 the building of a new Protestant church in Dobrzyca was suggested again by Count von Gorzenski, who turned to the ministry in Berlin for approval.
On June 10, 1799, the Royal Ministry in Berlin decided that the request could not be granted while Pastor Faustel from Koschmin was still alive. Count von Gorzenski then reached an agreement with Pastor Faustel to renounce Dobrzyca in return for compensation of 100 thalers a year.
Dobrzyca received on March 24, 1803 from the Minister of State von Massow from Berlin permission to separate from the parish of Koschmin and to found its own parish. The Dobrzyca parish received its first parish office. This occupied on May 16, 1803 Johann George Karge, who moved from Koschmin to Dobrzyca. Until 1820 he administered the parish Dobrzyca, which in the meantime belonged to the ecclesiastical province of Posen of the Evangelical Church in Prussia , with an annual salary of 75 thalers. In 1821 he accepted a pastor's post in Lublin . He was married to L. Ch. Jul. Gaultier de la Crose. In the early days of the parish, because of the inaccessibility of the settlements, the school teachers often took over the funerals on behalf of the pastor. In 1818 Pastor Karge played a major role in the creation of a school fund for the joint, bilingual education of children of all denominations in Dobrzyca. The steadily growing number of children made this measure necessary.
An old inn was converted into a house of prayer and services were held there for a long time. The turmoil of war prevented the landlord, Count von Gorzenski, from keeping his promise to build a new church in Dobrzyca.
It was only when King Friedrich Wilhelm I gave the parish a gift of 6,000 marks and the parish raised the same amount that the construction of the new Protestant church in Dobrzyca on Koschminer Strasse ( 51 ° 51 ′ 57.6 ″ N , 17 ° 35 ′ 48.1 ″ O ). The place for the church building to be built was determined by a legal dispute with Baroness von Turno, landlady of Dobrzyca. The Royal Prussian Higher Regulatory Court in Fraustadt confirmed the judgment in the first instance of the Royal Prussian Regional Court on May 4, 1827, which had determined the location of the church not to be the Klonowo estate but the Klonowo Vorwerk. The church was consecrated on June 14, 1842. The church building was renewed and expanded in 1903. On October 1, 1903, a festive service was held in the renovated church.
The semicircular chancel of the church had three windows with the following representations (seen from the inside): left window - Peter with key, center - Jesus , right window - John the Baptist .
After the change of territory in 1918, the Protestant parishes of the ecclesiastical province of Poznan, now located in Poland, formed the Uniate Evangelical Church in Poland , headed by Superintendent General Paul Blau . When most of the Germans from Dobberschütz and the surrounding area fled from the approaching Red Army on January 20, 1945, the Protestant parish was practically dissolved. As a testimony to the existence of this community, the church building, which was renovated after 1972, with its restored onion dome can still be seen today. Since May 20, 2008, a memorial plaque commemorates the deceased of the Evangelical parish Dobrzyca (Dobberschütz) from 1803 to 1945.
Parish places
The parish of Dobrzyca also included the Hauländereien and settlements Eichdorf, Rothendorf, Blumenau, Grünau, Steinicksheim, Wilscha, Wola, Olesie, Ruda, Fabianow, Lutynia, Steinfeld Koryta, Augustinowe, Felicianowe, Kottlin, Bugay, Orpischewek and the Racadower glass factory. From 1876 to 1906 and from 1921 to 1940 the municipality Deutsch-Koschmin was part of the parish Dobrzyca. The affiliation to the Protestant parish Dobrzyca changed several times over the years. There were other Protestant churches in Borek , Deutsch-Koschmin, Kobylin, Königsfeld, Koschmin, Krotoschin , Pogorzela and Zduny . In 1939 the name was changed from Dobrzyca to Dobberschütz, and in 1945 it was renamed to Dobrzyca.
In 1942 the 100th Kirchweih festival was celebrated in the presence of the Poznan general superintendent Paul Blau , the Krotoschiner superintendent Michalowski, the pastor Karl Berger, the local pastor Otto Kerstan and the church council representative of Dobrzyca and the associated haul estates. In 1942, church elders and community representatives agreed to carry out reading services, if necessary baptisms and burials, on behalf of the pastor, and were briefly trained. This became necessary as a preventive measure because the pastor was called up to join the armed forces. The vicars Borgmann, Kastner, Thom and Meißner were also active in the parish before 1940. The structural changes to the church tower over time were due to the three bells that were melted down for war purposes. The parish nurses' apartment was in the old sexton's house.
The Protestant cemetery was directly behind the Catholic one. The old Protestant rectory, used until 1936, was on the market. A wood store for the slipper factory was built on the site of the old rectory. Later the move to a new building near the church took place. During this time the trombone choir was founded under the direction of teacher Heinz Zimmermann, who also directed the church choir .
Pastor
In 1782 Johann Samuel Weitzmann looked after the evangelical Christians of Dobrzyca and the surrounding area in the parish of Koschmin. With the opening of the Dobrzyca parish, Johann George Karge worked from 1803 to 1821. Then he took a pastor in Lublin.
From November 1821 to 1839 he was followed by Samuel Friedrich Jaekel, who was born in 1769 and died on May 9, 1839 in Dobrzyca after 50 years of total service as a pastor. Samuel Friedrich Jaekel came from a pastor's family in Filehne and had studied in Halle . From 1792 to 1807 he was a soldier. From 1809 to 1816 he worked in Asmoos in the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland and then as a preacher in Zduny. After an assignment in Pabianice in Poland, he took over the parish in Dobrzyca in 1821. On February 10, 1822, he was introduced to his office in Dobrzyca in the presence of two ministers and the Catholic provost Jabczynski. The presence of the Catholic provost of Dobrzyca at the inauguration of Pastor Jaekel testifies to the growing recognition of the evangelical community. In 1833 he published the catechism for evangelical confirmands ( Breslau ) and triggered violent reactions.
Franz Jakob Nebe, who was born in Gatterstädt near Querfurt in 1811 and studied in Halle, worked in the parish from 1840 to 1854 and then occupied a pastor's position in Kletzko . Around 1840 Pastor Strecker was mentioned by the parish in Pleschen as a representative. From 1854 to 1890 Robert Aust (* 1822 - 23 September 1890) was pastor in Dobrzyca. He became superintendent in Krotoschin in 1877. Karl Siebe (born November 2, 1863 in Heden / Westphalia) led the office from 1891 to 1895. He then became a missionary in Windhoek / German South West Africa . He was followed by Friedrich Stege until 1898, who was previously employed in Kopnitz. From 1899 to 1906 Heinrich Kriele (born August 13, 1869) held the parish. From 1906 to 1916 Johannes Herrmann (born March 18, 1868) worked in the city. He was followed by Erwin Schneider (born February 12, 1890) from 1918 to 1920. Reinhold Giesel (from 1920 to 1928), Willibald Nitz (from 1928 to 1933), Karl Berger (from 1936 to 1938), Otto Kerstan (from 1939 to 1944) were the following pastors in the Dobrzyca parish. Karl Berger was a lecturer at the Theological College in Poznan and was ordained for spiritual service on October 25, 1936. He worked in Dobrzyca from 1936 to May 1, 1938. Then he worked in Schroda and Herrenhofen . He was followed from 1938 to 1939 by Helmut Thom (born July 22, 1913 in Rawitsch ). Pastor Rech from the parish Deutsch-Koschmin took over the official duties in Dobrzyca because of the conscription to the Wehrmacht from Otto Kerstan (died on March 15, 1944). From 1944 to 1945 Alfred Schröder (born March 20, 1918 in Orel) worked in Dobrzyca until the end of the war.
Church records
The parish registers of the evangelical community Dobrzyca are partly still available and the existing parish registers were filmed by the Mormons between 1970 and 1995 . The following church books and civil status registers can be viewed online via the Narodowe Archiwum Cyfrowe (NAC, national digital archive):
- Birth, marriage and death records 1818–1874 (Protestant church records, see web link)
- Birth, marriage and death registers 1874–1892 (civil status register, see web link)