Garrison and town church (Pillau)

Coordinates: 54 ° 38 '34 "  N , 19 ° 53' 16"  E The garrison and city church of the Holy Trinity of the East Prussian seaside town of Pillau ("Pillau I"), today's city of Baltijsk , was built in the 18th century in the shape of a cross on the Site of the Pillau fortress . It served both as a garrison church and as a place of worship for the Pillau civil parish. The church building no longer exists.

Geographical location

The town of Pillau, which in 1901 the then town of Pillau ("Pillau I") merged with the much older rural town of Alt Pillau ("Pillau II"), is located in the extreme southwest of the Samland peninsula and today bears the Russian name Baltijsk . It is also the administrative seat of the Baltiysk Rajon ( Pillau district ) in the Russian Kaliningrad Oblast ( Koenigsberg area (Prussia) ) and the terminus of both the Russian trunk road A 193 (former German Reichsstrasse 131 ) and the Kaliningrad – Baltijsk railway , the former East Prussian Southern Railway .

The location of the church on the fortress is difficult to find today.

Church building

There were two predecessor churches for the garrison and town church in Pillau, which existed until 1945: the Swedes built the first small wooden church in 1626 . It had to be renovated in 1636 under the Brandenburg Elector Georg Wilhelm . Elector Friedrich Wilhelm built a church in 1660, but it was soon replaced by a new building.

Between 1717 and 1720, the cruciform and towerless complex of the brick church "Zur Heiligen Dreifaltigkeit" was built in Gothic style, which until 1945 served as a garrison and town church in Pillau. The galleries inside made the building look like a rotunda. The ceiling consisted of a cross vault made of wood and plaster. A fire in 1768 made it necessary to renovate the building. The furnishings came from this period: the pulpit from 1773 and the organ from 1794. A votive ship hung from the ceiling . An altar was dispensed with because the church was also intended for Reformed worship. In its place stood a simple table from 1724. A bell was housed in an attic.

The church was damaged in World War II and demolished after 1960.

Up to 1945 there were three Protestant churches in the city of Pillau: in addition to the garrison and city church, the Alt Pillau church and - from 1866 - the Reformed Church . The latter has been preserved and is today the house of worship of the Russian Orthodox Church .

Parish

In 1635 the fortress of Pillau came to Brandenburg . A year later, the Protestant parish of Pillau was founded (opposite to the independent parish of Alt Pillau ). The church was subordinate to the government and belonged to the field consistory in Berlin . Until 1945 the civil parish was assigned to the parish in Fischhausen (today in Russian: Primorsk) in the church province of East Prussia of the Church of the Old Prussian Union . At the census in 1925, 2600 parishioners belonged to the garrison and town parish.

After the local population had fled and were expelled , church life in Pillau came to an end.

A Russian Orthodox congregation has existed in the city since 1992 , and Protestant church members living here now belong to the newly established congregation in Swetly (Zimmerbude) , a subsidiary congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Resurrection Church in Kaliningrad (Königsberg) in the Kaliningrad provost of the Evangelical Lutheran Church European Russia .

Parish places

The pastoral care area of ​​the garrison and town church in Pillau (Pillau I) included the military and residents of the town - mostly on the Fresh Spit and all of them that no longer exist today:

• Border house
• Large fraction
• Seagull hook
• Neutief (Russian name: Kossa)
• Bush Bay
• Westfort .

Pastor

Two pastors performed their duties at the garrison and town church in Pillau, the one of the first pastor also being the garrison pastor:

Parish office I : Michael White, 1636 Georg Neuschilling, 1636–18638 Christian Meyer, 1639-1667 Caspar Witzel, 1667-1696 Johann Caspar Witzel, 1696-1710 Johann Bartholomäus Engelhard, 1710–1722 Christoph Schultz, 1723-1732 Michael Dedelau, 1732-1753 Samuel Adolph Brokowski, 1753–1788 Johann Friedrich Woysch, 1789–1826 Johann Gottfried Wilhelm Woysch, 1826–1853 Georg Eduard Julius Ulmer, 1853–1863 Carl Otto Friedrich Woysch, 1864–1874 Eduard MW Teichgräber, 1875–1891 Franz Albert Max Kehler, 1891–1917 Heinrich Otto Johann Bach, 1917–1920 Julius Matz, 1920–1930 Kurt Toball, 1930-1939 Helmut Walsdorff, 1940–1945

Parish office II : Georg Stolzenberg, 1667–1691 Martin Zeuschner, 1691–1704 Johann Capsra Witzel, 1704-1710 Christoph Schultz, 1711–1723 Michael Dedelau, 1723-1732 Johann Jacob Weichel, 1732-1737 Christian Haas, 1737-1751 Samuel Adolph Brokowski, 1751–1753 Jacob Heinrich Albäck, 1753–1766 Johann Joachim Dickow, 1766–1776 Theodor Michael Arendt, 1776–1808 Friedrich Wilhelm Lange, 1813-1820 Otto Ludwig Haack, 1820–1827 Theodor Laudien, 1827–1835 Alexander Friedrich Heinrich Henke, 1836–1855 Franz Albert Fischer, 1860–1868 Carl August Wiebe, 1869–1872 Martin Trzaska, 1872-19876 Hermann Richard Arthur Weber, 1892–1895 Hans Alfons Gustav Tribukait, 1896–1907 Walter Burgschat, 1914/1915

Church records

Numerous documents from the church records of the garrison and town church in Pillau survived the war. Today they are kept in the Evangelical Central Archive in Berlin-Kreuzberg :

Official act	Garrison area	City area
To baptize	1641-1805 and 1839-1937	1710-1945
Weddings	1639-1824 and 1839-1937	1731-1944
Funerals	1645-1755, 1771-1829 and 1839-1937	1645-1891
Confirmations	1820-1920	1820-1875
Communicants	1750-1757 and 1839-1864	1838-1872

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Walther Hubatsch , History of the Protestant Church of East Prussia , Volume II: Pictures of East Prussian Churches , Göttingen, 1968, page 35, fig. 49-52
2. ↑ Patrick Plew, The churches in Samland: Pillau
3. ^ Building in Pillau at ostpreussen.net
4. ↑ Walther Hubatsch, History of the Evangelical Church of East Prussia , Volume III: Documents , Göttingen, 1968, page 454
5. ↑ Evangelical Lutheran Provosty Kaliningrad ( Memento of the original dated August 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ Friedwald Moeller, Old Prussian Evangelical Pastors' Book from the Reformation to the Expulsion in 1945 , Hamburg, 1968, page 110
7. ↑ Christa Stache, Directory of the Church Books in the Evangelical Central Archives in Berlin , Part I: The Eastern Church Provinces of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union , Berlin, 1992³, pages 91 to 192