Arnau Church

The Arnau Church ( Russian Кирха Арнау ) was the place of worship in today's Rodniki ( Russian Родники ) place and one of the most important architectural monuments in East Prussia and for a long time a pilgrimage church in the Order of the Land . The oldest parts of the still existing building date from the first half of the 14th century. Until 1945 the church was a Protestant church.

The Arnau Church (Rodniki (Marjino))

Geographical location

Today's Russian Rodniki is nine kilometers east of Kaliningrad and can be reached via the new route of the Russian trunk road A 229 . The place is a settlement (possjolok) within the Nisowskoje selskoje posselenije (rural community Nisowje (Waldau) ) in Gurjewsk Rajon ( Neuhausen district ) of Kaliningrad Oblast ( Königsberg region (Prussia) ).

The “St. Katharinenkirche "called former church is located outside the village south of the highway on a hill above the Pregel lowland area (Russian: Pregolja). From a slope that descends 30 meters to the Pregel glacial valley , the view extends far south to the moraine hills of Natangens south of Slavskoje (Kreuzburg) . A prehistoric burial ground and a Prussian refugee castle on the steep edge provide information about a very early settlement of the high bank of the Pregel.

Church building

Building history and description

Until 1945

Not far from the Prussian defense system, the Teutonic Order built the church dedicated to St. Catherine between 1340 and 1350 . In 1349 the Grand Master gave it to the newly founded monastery in Löbenicht with 24 hooves . It belonged to this or its successor, the Great Hospital , until 1636.

First the choir of the church was built, then the nave , which was plastered with whitewash and decorated with consecration crosses . In the 1360s, the nave was painted with a healing mirror cycle (spectaculum humanae salvationis), probably by a master of the Königsberg painting school. Then the two-storey vestibule was built, the west tower in brick masonry on a field stone base was built and, like the sacristy, was added with a barrel-vaulted roof. The wall paintings were whitewashed during the Reformation .

In 1684, when Lutheran teaching had been introduced for more than 150 years, Christian Klodssen created the pulpit and the font was also created at that time. Three years later, the altar received a painted and gilded top by Martinus Bergmann . The pulpit was not painted until 1768 by J. B. Zedler .

The organ installed in the 18th century was rebuilt in 1854 and received 17 sounding stops .

An extensive restoration of the church took place between 1908 and 1912, during which the medieval wall paintings with 119 pictures were exposed. The frescoes were photographically documented by Oscar Bittrich in 1912 .

Since 1945

The church was not destroyed in World War II. Only the tower was damaged by fire. In the post-war period, however, the art treasures in the house of God fell victim to the circumstances. Unless they were destroyed, they were lost. The church was not used for worship. The building began to deteriorate, and it was also damaged by vandalism.

In the early 1950s, the church building became the property of a collective farm that used it as a granary. Using the wooden beams of the roof structure, a false ceiling was put in in 1951 in order to achieve more storage capacity: the dry floor was above, a warehouse below.

In the period that followed, the wall paintings were also painted over and in places even plastered with cement mortar. The east wall and the sacristy were broken through and an entrance gate for tractors was installed. The vault of the sacristy was destroyed.

In 1978 the tower was dismantled and the materials used to erect the freestanding pillars with the wooden false ceiling.

After 1994 the Arnau Church became the property of the Russian Federation . The building was leased by a construction company who used it as a material store. The right of use was withdrawn from the collective farm. The Kuratorium Arnau e. V. was officially authorized to carry out the restoration work on the church. In the same year the church was supposed to be demolished. Even after a long struggle, the board of trustees achieved that the church was placed under monument protection.

With the completion of the tower in 2002, the first restoration phase was completed. The symbolic end of this construction phase was the erection of the spire. It was made in Moscow based on a historical model . Inside the sphere there is a document with the wording:

After decades of cultural barbarism, the power of calamity was broken at this place in Arnau. Russian and German partners have worked together to restore the church of St. Catherine from the 14th century, intact at the end of the war, as a cultural monument of Gothic brick construction and a refuge of unique Gothic frescoes, in a historically accurate form and to hand it over to posterity. The tower with the coronation in the image of St. Catherine was rebuilt in 2001 after two years of construction. In 2001, since Vladimir Putin is President of the Russian Federation and Gerhard Schröder is Federal Chancellor in Germany, this document is sealed in the sphere above the tower roof. May war and violence spare the building from now on .

The Kaliningrad regional authority commissioned the Museum of History and Art in Kaliningrad to manage the Arnau Church. Between him and the Kuratorium Arnau e. V. was able to conclude a contract for the planning of the restoration work and the exhibitions on an equal footing in 2008. The church is to be run as a public museum. These agreements changed when the local authority suddenly transferred control of the building to the Russian Orthodox Church ( diocese of Kaliningrad and Baltiysk ) in 2011 . Since then, it has determined the construction process.

The Kuratorium Arnau eV sees the danger that the Orthodox Church will secure the building, but have no interest in maintaining or restoring the unique frescoes with the healing mirror cycle. The fixing of the frescoes begun by the Board of Trustees will not be continued. Measures have even been taken inside the church that continue to affect them.

Between 2012 and 2014, the Orthodox Church pushed ahead with restoration work under great time pressure without consulting the previous organizations, which in 2014 investigations proved to be seriously improper. The wrong colors and plaster had been used and 60% of the frescoes had been lost due to incorrect heating. After the work was completed, only three smaller parts of the frescoes were preserved. The Orthodox Church appropriated the building in a ceremony in 2012. While at least attempts had been made by the Russian side to prevent the destruction, no help had been given from the German side, according to the association.

Parish

Parish

A church in Arnau was mentioned in a document as early as 1322, and in 1320 already a plebanus de Arnow (world priest). Even in the pre-Reformation period, Arnau was a central church village. The Lutheran Reformation arrived there early, as services were held according to the new teaching as early as 1525. The parish once belonged to the inspection of the Königsberg preachers and the parish was then incorporated into the parish of Königsberg-Land II within the church province of East Prussia of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union until 1945 .

There is currently no parish there. The place is in the catchment area of ​​the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Resurrection in Kaliningrad , the main church of the Kaliningrad provost of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of European Russia (ELKER).

Parish locations (until 1945)

Until 1945 , the Arnau Church was part of an extensive parish to which 29 towns belonged:

Surname	Russian name		Surname	Russian name		Surname	Russian name
Custom			Cogs	Nagornoje		Prussian Arnau	Rodniki
Arnau	Rodniki, formerly: Marjino		Legitten	Pobedino		Seven oaks
Foxyards	Slavyanskoye		Left	Koshevoye		Spitzings	Malinniki
Quintuplets	Prokhorovka		Littersdorf			Spohr
Fürstenwalde			Mantau	Jastrebki		Stangau	Malinovka
Gamsau	Podgornoje		Maternhof			Trumpets
Great Legden	Dobroje		Norgehen	Strelzowo		Waldau	Nizovye
Hermannshof	Matveyevka		Poduhren	Orechowka		Wargien	Aprelewka
Jungferndorf	Rodniki, formerly: Ryabinovka		Praddau	Solnechnoye		Wolfsdorf	Krasnoye
Little Legden	Dobroje		Nod	Podolskoye

Pastor (1525–1945)

From the Reformation to the end of the Second World War, 26 evangelical clergy were in office in Arnau:

• NN, 1525-1526
• Bartholomäus Luthermann, 1536–1544
• Caspar Scheibichen, 1545–1549
• Thomas N., until 1570
• Hieronymus Galliculus, 1565-1580
• N. Krüger, from 1580
• Gregor Sagittarius, 1587–1592
• Elias Wolf, 1592–1594
• Michael Pancritius, 1594-1645
• Johann J. Schmalvogel, 1646–1668
• Albert Gabius, 1680-1690
• Michael Schiller, 1691-1704
• Daniel Hintz, 1705-1712
• Andreas Ernst Dorn, 1712–1725
• Johann Balthasar Charisius, 1726–1758
• Friedrich Wilhelm Benefeldt, 1758–1786
• Gotth. Friedrich Hippel, 1786–1809
• Daniel Theodor Freytag, 1809-1821
• Johann Friedrich Plew, 1822–1858
• August Samelowitz, 1858
• JG Adolf Mertens, 1859–1874
• Gustav Ludwig Rehbein, 1874–1899
• Albert von Schaewen, 1900–1913
• Ernst Richard Glogau, 1913–1936
• Arthur Brodowski, 1936–1945

Web links

• Board of Trustees Arnau e. V.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ History of the Arnau Church ( Memento of the original from September 3, 2014 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. 
2. ↑ Pictures of the salvation mirror of the Arnau church
3. ↑ One of Bittrich's recordings at www.bildarchiv-ostpreussen.de
4. ↑ Walter T. Rix: The frescoes of St. Katharinen in Arnau in danger. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 16, 2012, p. 30
5. ^ Text at ostpreussen.net
6. ↑ Walter T. Rix: The frescoes of St. Katharinen in Arnau in danger. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, August 16, 2012. p. 30
7. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from September 8, 2017 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 Sep. 8 2017, 1 p.m., originally published as: Walter T. Rix: The last chapter. In: Our beautiful Samland, 203rd episode, 3/2014, pp. 56–61. 
8. ↑ 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. 
9. ^ The churches in Samland: Arnau
10. ^ Friedwald Moeller, Old Prussian Evangelical Pastor's Book from the Reformation to the Expulsion in 1945 , Hamburg, 1968
11. ^ ^{A b} Member of the Masovia Corps
12. ↑ The Masure v. Schaewen 2 (1868-1919) was last superintendent in Saalfeld

Coordinates: 54 ° 42 ′ 3 ″  N , 20 ° 40 ′ 4.3 ″  E