Gethsemane Church (Berlin)
The Evangelical Gethsemane Church is a church in the Berlin district of Pankow and is in the Helmholtzkiez of the Prenzlauer Berg district . It was built from 1891–1893 according to plans by August Orth and owes its importance not least to its role during the peaceful revolution in the GDR in autumn 1989. In the 21st century it is one of three of the Protestant parish Prenzlauer Berg Nord in the parish of Berlin Stadtmitte used churches and one of four preaching sites.
Location and urban environment
The Gethsemane Church is on the corner of Stargarder and Greifenhagener Strasse in the north of the Prenzlauer Berg district , around 100 meters east of Schönhauser Allee near the ring and underground station of the same name . The church is oriented to the east , the west tower forms the façade towards the street crossing. The Gethsemanestraße circumscribes the choir and the north side of the church and, with the other two streets a place in the middle of the church.
The facades of the residential buildings delimiting the space are among the most splendid in Prenzlauer Berg, a district that emerged as a working-class district, which, compared to the western Wilhelminian districts of Berlin, such as Charlottenburg or Schöneberg , has less representative residential buildings.
The church forms a distinctive urban dominant feature, Stargarder Straße has a slight bend at the level of the church, so that the tower can be seen along the entire course of the street at the end of the visual axis.
The residential quarters in the area, the quarters Helmholtzplatz and Falkplatz , have experienced an extensive exchange between the population since 1990, which today consists of an above-average number of young adults and young families.
Building history
The rapid growth of Berlin at the end of the 19th century created great demand for new public facilities for the newly settled population. In the less prosperous north of Berlin, characterized by simple, densely built residential buildings (" tenement barracks "), the houses of worship in new parishes, along with the numerous schools that were emerging, were the only dominants in urban planning. Like other Protestant churches, the Gethsemane Church was given a prestigious location on a quarter square, while many churches, especially the Catholic churches, had to make do with common residential property.
One of the largest landowners in north Berlin at that time was Wilhelm Griebenow , who had already acquired the Königliche Vorwerk in front of Schönhauser Tor , which encompasses large parts of what is now the district, in 1823 and made a considerable fortune through the parceling and sale of the site. His widow Caroline donated the property on Stargarder Strasse to the community and thus enabled the construction of the Gethsemane Church. The foundation stone was laid on March 20, 1891, and the church was consecrated two years later, on February 26, 1893. The new parish was a subsidiary of the Zionsgemeinde, whose church was also built by August Orth in 1866–1873 . The name Gethsemane was determined by Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was present at the consecration .
In 1927 the interior of the church was renovated for the first time . During this event the community received a new organ . The Sauer organ installed first was replaced by an instrument from Alexander Schuke's organ building workshop in Potsdam .
At the end of the Second World War , the stained glass windows broke and were replaced soon after the end of the war. In 1961 the interior was completely redesigned: the altar came from the apse more towards the center of the church, the two transepts were separated from the main nave. The walls and ceilings were painted over with white paint.
After stones fell from the tower onto a sidewalk in 2009, the Gethsemane Church was renovated in 2015/2016 for 1.2 million euros.
Building description
Like the Zionskirche , Gethsemane is an interesting mixture of central and longitudinal structure . From the outside, giving the impression of a longitudinal hall church with a clear transept , inside the crossing is designed as a large octagon with a star vault, which takes up large parts of the interior and creates a centralizing effect. The transept is barely recognizable from the inside, and the aisles also disappear under the lush galleries , which, with the exception of the choir, surround the entire interior . The pillars and galleries are clad in terracotta .
Stylistically, the building cannot be clearly assigned. In addition to romanized elements such as arched windows or the rose window on the west facade, Gothicized structural details dominate the building, such as the ribbed vaults , the bundle pillars or the tracery windows . However, the proportions of the interior have nothing in common with a medieval church, the wildly composed galleries (two-story in the west) are more reminiscent of baroque exuberance.
The building closes in the east with an apse , surrounded by an ambulatory , which contains the sacristy and parish rooms.
The exterior appears stricter than the interior. The high west tower , a four-storey building on a square floor plan, crowned by a steep octagonal spire dominates. On the ground floor there is a vaulted entrance hall behind the monumental portal. The outer walls of the church are divided by strong buttresses , which are crowned by small pinnacles at the corners of the building .
Further equipment and works of art
Bells
In the tower hang three cast steel bells from the Bochumer Verein bell foundry from the year the church was built. The following information can be found in an inventory list of the foundry: The three-part bell came in a square bell chamber with a side length of 5.60 m. The production of all three bells including accessories such as clapper, axles, bearings and chime levers cost 7230 marks.
| size | Chime | Weight (kg) | lower diameter (mm) | Height (mm) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| greatest | b ° | 2585 | 1885 | 1655 |
| middle | of' | 1527 | 1570 | 1380 |
| smallest | e ′ | 1059 | 1385 | 1225 |
Sculptures
In the south transept is the expressionist wooden sculpture of the praying Christ created by Wilhelm Groß in 1923 (also known as Christ kneeling in Gethsemane according to the church hall ). It recalls the incident that gave the church its name: hours before his capture, in the garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem, Jesus prayed to God and pleaded to be spared from the predestined fate: “My father, if it is possible, approach this cup with over; but not as I want, but as you want ”( Matthew 26 : 36-46 EU ). The sculpture touches the moment of weakness of the person Jesus, who asks for his life. It is a memorial to the fallen of the First World War and differs significantly from the work of the interwar period that glorified heroic death , which was more common at the time .
The Blessing Christ from the former Church of Reconciliation , which stood in the middle of the wall on Bernauer Strasse and was blown up by the GDR border troops in January 1985, has stood in front of the west portal . A copy of the statue of Blessing Christ by the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen stood here until 1965 , which had to be removed as it was badly damaged by the weather.
Before the south wall of the church is the 4.60-meter-high bronze plastic The spirit fighters (see picture), a cast of 1928 by the expressionist sculptor Ernst Barlach work created, the order of the city Kiel Saints (destroyed and war) for the local Spirit Church was designed. The copy bought by the East Berlin magistrate in 1990 was intended as a memorial against the fascist book burning on Bebelplatz in Berlin-Mitte, but it was too small for this location. Since November 8, 1994 it has stood at the Gethsemane Church, in honor of the democracy movement in the GDR.
Candlesticks and altar
In 1965, the blacksmith Fritz Kühn made a steel and brass chandelier and a standing cross for the altar table from steel plates. Achim Kühn , the son of Fritz Kühn and also a blacksmith in Berlin, created an Easter candlestick for the community in 2004 .
relief
In the garden - facing Stargarder Strasse - there is also the relief resistance by Karl Biedermann . It was created in the 1980s in honor of the resistance against fascism and was supposed to stand on the bridge of Schönhauser Allee over the Ringbahn , but was rejected because it did not contain any symbols of the fight against fascism. It has stood on Gethsemane Church since October 3, 1990 and commemorates the events of autumn 1989.
Fall 1989
During the 1980s, the Gethsemane community, like other Berlin communities, was a gathering point for opposition members and the GDR peace movement. Since 1983/1984, one of the few explicitly lesbian groups in the GDR, the working group Homosexual Self-Help - Lesbians in the Church, was among various civil rights groups under the umbrella of the Gethsemane community .
The community held intercession services , prayers for peace and public discussions at the 1987 Kirchentag , after the arrests at the Liebknecht Luxembourg demonstration on January 17, 1988, on which banners with the Luxembourg quote Freedom is always the freedom of those who think differently were shown, after the fake ones Local elections on May 7, 1989 and after the massacre of the Chinese democracy movement on June 4, 1989 . During this time, Pastor Werner Widrat in particular supported the opposition grassroots groups, who had been able to operate a contact telephone for information and networking in the community since the beginning of 1989. a. Ulrike Poppe and Marianne Birthler collaborated.
From October 2, 1989, the church was open day and night, the vigils (the motto watch and pray was again taken from the Gethsemane story of the Gospel of Matthew) and discussion events were attended by thousands, a sea of burning candles covered the forecourt and became a symbol for the nonviolent protest. On October 7, the national holiday and the 40th anniversary of the founding of the GDR, units of the People's Police and State Security used violence against demonstrators in Schönhauser Allee, many of whom were able to take refuge in Gethsemane Church. Despite this, over 1,000 people were arrested and some were held for several weeks. In the days that followed, the contact phone group in the community room collected memorial records from witnesses to the violence and from released detainees.
On October 9th, in the Gethsemane Church , Bishop Gottfried Forck called on the GDR leadership to take clear and credible steps so that [...] a democratic and constitutional perspective could be found for the GDR .
On November 5th, the Staatskapelle Berlin played Beethoven's 3rd Symphony (Eroica) in the Gethsemane Church, a concert at which the then General Music Director of the Komische Oper , Rolf Reuter , applauded: "The wall must go!" spontaneous demonstration parade through Schönhauser Allee.
After the resignation of the old GDR leadership, the church was a meeting place and discussion forum for the citizens' movement . For the opening of the first and only freely elected People's Chamber in March 1990, it met here for a service.
The Gethsemane Church since 1990
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The community's political and peace movement continued even after reunification , since the Second Gulf War in 1991, regular prayers for peace have taken place again. Attention, which was at least approximately comparable to the events of 1989, was again able to attract the church with a church-political event: During the Ecumenical Church Congress in 2003 , two ecumenical services with communion celebrations by Protestant and Catholic Christians took place here, which were first publicly announced in advance was. Pope John Paul II had previously expressly forbidden the common celebration of the Eucharist . The participation in the celebrations was still huge, so that the flow of visitors backed up to the Stargarder Straße. In a service according to the Catholic rite, the Catholic priest Gotthold Hasenhüttl , who led the service, invited everyone to take part in communion. He was then suspended by the responsible bishop Reinhard Marx because of his violation of church discipline . After a church service according to the Evangelical rite, in which the Catholic pastor of Großhabersdorf from the Diocese of Eichstätt (Bavaria) Bernhard Kroll preached and took part in the Lord's Supper, the responsible bishop Walter Mixa forced him to give up his office. Substantial protests from the community and far beyond were in vain.
Concerts take place regularly in the church. In addition to their own church music ensembles, the Lautten Compagney Berlin also performs here regularly.
literature
- Grosinski: Prenzlauer Berg. A chronicle . Dietz, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-320-01938-4 .
- Dehio: Handbook of German Art Monuments : Berlin . DKV, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-422-03071-9 (322 pages).
- Parish Council of the Ev. Parish Prenzlauer Berg Nord (ed.): Gethsemanekirche (leaflet, 2003).
- S. Scherz-Schade: Churches in Berlin. Churches, synagogues, mosques and temples . Berlin Story Verlag, Berlin, ISBN 3-929829-29-0 (248 pages).
- Parish Council of the Ev. Parish Prenzlauer Berg Nord (Ed.): Gethsemane Church Berlin . Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-931640-48-5 (2nd revised edition).
- Gethsemane Church Berlin (ed.): Watch and pray. Autumn '89 in the Gethsemane Church. 20 years later. Conversations, reports, notes . KKV e. V., Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-931640-70-5 .
Web links
- Parish Prenzlauer Berg Nord
- Entry in the Berlin State Monument List with further information
- Gethsemane Church (Berlin). In: arch INFORM .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Gethsemane Church. Retrieved August 6, 2019 .
- ^ Prenzlauer Berg Nachrichten: Gethsemanekirche: renovation now . January 9, 2015
- ↑ Compilation of the bells delivered to Berlin and the surrounding area ; Bochum Association, around 1900. In the archive of the Köpenick Church of St. Josef, viewed on August 6, 2019.
- ↑ Evangelical Church Community Prenzlauer Berg Nord: Gethsemanekirche , ( Memento of the original from October 4, 2013 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. accessed on February 2, 2019.
- ↑ a b Gerold Hildebrand: The disabled investigation. Police and Stasi attacks on the 40th anniversary of the GDR in East Berlin and the consequences . In: Horch and Guck , Volume 18, Issue 63, (1/2009), pp. 4-7. Article on the net ( Memento of the original from October 5, 2013 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. , viewed on August 10, 2010
- ^ Vigil in the Gethsemane Church Photos, videos, documents and interviews with contemporary witnesses on jugendopposition.de ( Federal Agency for Civic Education / Robert Havemann Society )
- ↑ Cornelia Kästner (Ed.): Watch and pray. Autumn '89 in the Gethsemane Church 20 years later. Conversations, reports, notes , illustrated with numerous photos and documents. Self-published by the Prenzlauer Berg Nord parish council, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-931640-70-5 .
- ↑ Grosinski, p. 205
Coordinates: 52 ° 32 ′ 51.8 " N , 13 ° 24 ′ 58.4" E