Finnish seaman's church

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Parish hall and seaman's church in Hamburg
Building of the seaman's church

The Finnish Seamen's Church is a church in Hamburg district of Neustadt . Your job is to look after Finnish seafarers; But it also includes Finnish truck drivers in its work and is also the local church for the Finns living in Hamburg . The Finnish Society for Seaman's Mission, as the sponsor of the Hamburg Church, has concluded an agreement with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland . Seafarers and truck drivers are taken to the church by shuttle buses, where they have the opportunity to relax outside the worship room, visit the sauna, read Finnish newspapers, watch TV programs, do laundry, etc.

description

Church services and other community activities take place in the church and its adjoining buildings. The annual bazaar of the community's handicraft group during Advent is a popular event with Hamburgers with around 30,000 visitors. A small self-service shop sells Finnish products. At the affiliated language school Hampurin suomalainen koulu , Finnish children and adolescents receive mother tongue lessons. A neighborhood help project offers support in problematic situations.

The building complex, which also houses a sauna, is listed as a cultural monument in the Hamburg monument list. The office of the Finnish Honorary Consul in Hamburg is also located here. The Norwegian Seaman's Church and the Benediktekirken (Danish Seaman's Church) are in the immediate vicinity .

history

Since the 1880s, Finnish seamen had been looked after by the pastors of the Swedish Seaman's Church , who had started to take care of the seamen in 1883 in the rooms of the English church in Hamburg. To this end, the Swedish Mission held Finnish newspapers in the reading room and helped Finnish seafarers, for example, with correspondence and money matters. At the end of the 19th century, the number of Finnish seamen in Hamburg increased, so that the Swedish mission workers looked after more Finnish than Swedish seamen and finally hired the first Finnish worker.

It was not until June 1901 that the first employee sent by the Finnish Society for Seaman's Mission, the theology student Toivo Waltari, arrived in Hamburg. Waltari gave sermons in Finnish and wrote a report in which he described the situation and the care needs of Finnish seafarers in the northern German ports. In October 1901, the Finnish Seamen's Mission has decided to formally start work in Hamburg, and sent Toivo Waltari, who, now a pastor ordained , recorded in February 1902 in Hamburg his work. This included services and devotions, as well as visits to ships, hospitals and prison. In the first year, 6,200 visitors to the reading room were counted. In addition to the seafarers, Waltari also took care of other Finns living in Hamburg and initiated a choir, a handicraft group and an emergency fund. In 1906 Waltari returned to Finland, where he later became head of the Finnish Society for Seafarers' Mission. His successors usually stayed in Hamburg for a year or two before returning to Finland or being transferred to other locations.

In 1907 the Finnish seaman's mission was able to move into the rooms of the newly built Swedish seaman's church, but had to leave it again in 1915 and rent other rooms at the Johannisbollwerk. The station now has more than 16,000 visitors a year. After several other moves, the Mission bought its own building in 1921, but the church was not inaugurated until April 1926. In October 1926 a seaman's home with 55 rooms was added. In the 1930s and 1940s, the station was kept operating by lay workers until the building was destroyed by the bombing raid on Hamburg in 1943 . Shipping traffic had come to a standstill during the Second World War.

Finnish seafarers came to Hamburg again in the 1950s. As at the beginning of the century, they went to the Swedish Church, which was the only one of the Hamburg seaman's churches to remain undamaged. From 1957 employees posted from Finland worked there to look after Finns in Hamburg and Finnish seafarers. Negotiations between the Finnish Society for Seemannsmission, supported by the Finnish commercial agency in Hamburg and the German-Finnish Association , with the city of Hamburg led to the city of Hamburg buying the previous property in 1963 and making another, larger lease available on the one new church building was built and inaugurated in 1966.

In the 1960s, around 300 Finnish ships arrived in Hamburg every year; the Swedish Church counted about 6,500 Finnish visitors per year. In the new Finnish church building, the number of visitors rose to 28,000 in 1967, to over 30,000 in the 1970s and to over 45,000 in the 1990s, including numerous sauna guests. In 1975 the Finnish Seamen's Mission Foundation in Hamburg took over the sponsorship of the church.

The Hungarian-speaking Evangelical Reformed congregation has been a guest at the Finnish seaman's church since 1991 and holds regular services there.

More than 30 years after the church was built, it was extensively renovated between 1996 and 2000; Saunas, community rooms and building services were brought up to date. In 2001 the station had four full-time employees, plus several part-time and honorary employees and diaconal interns. Social workers have also been working there since 2002. In the 1990s the ship pastors visited between 250 and 450 ships annually. In 2016 the church had around 70,000 visitors a year.

building

Building complex of the Finnish Seaman's Church with a consulate

The Finnish architect Pentti Ahola designed the church with community rooms, living rooms for employees and guest rooms together with the German architect Dieter Langmaack. The foundation stone was laid on April 22, 1965, the inauguration on December 18, 1966. In addition to the church hall, the church includes a café, a library, a shop, saunas, a playroom and accommodation.

The building is located in the immediate vicinity of the seaman's churches of the Scandinavian nations. Clad in dark brown clinker brick , the building is kept in simple forms and represents the functionalist architecture of Finnish post-war modernism . A bronze cross on the outer wall of the church hall marks this part of the building complex as a sacred space. There are apartments in the high part of the building. The property is surrounded by a brown brick wall that visually connects the different parts of the building.

The church hall has a narrow rectangular floor plan; it can be enlarged to the side of the altar. Despite the narrow floor plan, the room is structured like a traditional nave with side aisles, so that the room in the middle is about twice as high as on the side walls. The roof of the left aisle is glazed and thus illuminates the church hall from above. The floor is tiled dark, the high central part of the ceiling is paneled with dark wood, while all other walls and ceiling surfaces are plastered in white. On the side opposite the altar there is a small gallery with an organ. The chairs are modern and simply made of dark wood. The centrally placed altar with a votive ship stands on a flat pedestal. In front of it there is a kneeling bench for distributing the Lord's Supper. On the pedestal to the left of the altar is the cuboid, dark pulpit, to the right of the altar is the round baptismal font made of light natural stone.

The anchor to the right of the altar is said to come from the MS Levante owned by the Henry Nielsen shipping company.

literature

  • Toivo Waltari: Merimiespappina Hampurissa (As a seaman's pastor in Hamburg). 1912.
  • Erkki Kansanaho: Kirkko yes merenkulkijat. Sata vuotta Suomen merimieslähetystyötä (Church and seafarer. One hundred years of Finnish seafaring missionary work). 1983.
  • Hannu Suihkonen, Sirpa Donndorf, Kaija Haikonen, Marjukka Jacobsen (eds.): Kaikukoon runsaana ylistys ... Sound praise ... Hampurin Suomalainen Merimieskirkko. Finnish seaman's church in Hamburg 1902–2001. Festschrift. Hamburg, 2001.
  • Satu Oldendorff, Eira Weißenburg, Johanna Elo-Schäfer (eds.): Kirkko Täynna elämäa. Church full of life. Festschrift. Hamburg, 2016.

Web links

Commons : Finnish Seaman's Church  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Finnish Seaman's Church. Retrieved April 27, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Satu Oldendorff, Eira Weißenburg, Johanna Elo-Schäfer (ed.): Kirkko Täynna elämäa. Church full of life. Festschrift. Hamburg, 2016. p. 20.
  3. ↑ Hannu Suihkonen, Sirpa Donndorf, Kaija Haikonen, Marjukka Jacobsen (eds.): Kaikukoon runsaana ylistys ... The praise is plentiful .... Hampurin Suomalainen Merimieskirkko. Finnish seaman's church in Hamburg 1902–2001. Festschrift. Hamburg, 2001. p. 60.
  4. ↑ Hannu Suihkonen, Sirpa Donndorf, Kaija Haikonen, Marjukka Jacobsen (eds.): Kaikukoon runsaana ylistys ... The praise is plentiful .... Hampurin Suomalainen Merimieskirkko. Finnish seaman's church in Hamburg 1902–2001. Festschrift. Hamburg, 2001. pp. 61-62.
  5. ↑ Hannu Suihkonen, Sirpa Donndorf, Kaija Haikonen, Marjukka Jacobsen (eds.): Kaikukoon runsaana ylistys… The praise is plentiful. - Hampurin Suomalainen Merimieskirkko. Finnish seaman's church in Hamburg 1902–2001. Festschrift. Hamburg, 2001. pp. 62-65.
  6. ↑ Hannu Suihkonen, Sirpa Donndorf, Kaija Haikonen, Marjukka Jacobsen (eds.): Kaikukoon runsaana ylistys… The praise is plentiful. … Hampurin Suomalainen Merimieskirkko. Finnish seaman's church in Hamburg 1902–2001. Festschrift. Hamburg, 2001. pp. 65-67.
  7. ↑ Hannu Suihkonen, Sirpa Donndorf, Kaija Haikonen, Marjukka Jacobsen (eds.): Kaikukoon runsaana ylistys… The praise is plentiful. … Hampurin Suomalainen Merimieskirkko. Finnish seaman's church in Hamburg 1902–2001. Festschrift. Hamburg, 2001. pp. 68-77, 80-82.
  8. ↑ Satu Oldendorff, Eira Weißenburg, Johanna Elo-Schäfer (ed.): Kirkko Täynna elämäa. Church full of life. Festschrift. Hamburg, 2016. pp. 47–48.
  9. ↑ Hannu Suihkonen, Sirpa Donndorf, Kaija Haikonen, Marjukka Jacobsen (eds.): Kaikukoon runsaana ylistys… The praise is plentiful. … Hampurin Suomalainen Merimieskirkko. Finnish seaman's church in Hamburg 1902–2001. Festschrift. Hamburg, 2001. pp. 68-77, 80-82.
  10. ↑ Satu Oldendorff, Eira Weißenburg, Johanna Elo-Schäfer (ed.): Kirkko Täynna elämäa. Church full of life. Festschrift. Hamburg, 2016. p. 20.
  11. ↑ Satu Oldendorff, Eira Weißenburg, Johanna Elo-Schäfer (ed.): Kirkko Täynna elämäa. Church full of life. Festschrift. Hamburg, 2016. pp. 11, 54–58.
  12. ↑ Satu Oldendorff, Eira Weißenburg, Johanna Elo-Schäfer (ed.): Kirkko Täynna elämäa. Church full of life. Festschrift. Hamburg, 2016. pp. 11–12.

Coordinates: 53 ° 32 ′ 47.5 "  N , 9 ° 58 ′ 35.9"  E