Burg Church (Spreewald)
The church Burg (Spreewald) is the Protestant church of the village Burg (Spreewald) in the Spreewald .
history
Foundation of the church
As a small and initially very inaccessible place, Burg did not have its own church. The residents in Lübbenau attended the service . However, Lübbenau later fell to Saxony after the Peace of Prague in 1635 , while Burg continued to belong to Brandenburg. Possibly since that time the citizens belonged to the church community Werben and went to the local village church . Due to an intensive settlement policy by Prussia, the population in Burg increased significantly. The space in the church in Werben was no longer sufficient. There was also the problem that Pastor Spindler, who had been active in advertising since 1745, could not speak Wendish, i.e. Lower Sorbian, well. At that time, Wendish was still the colloquial language in Burg. The citizens turned to the royal government in 1746 with the desire to found their own parish and build a church. The wish was granted to them. Congregation life initially continued to take place in advertising. In 1749 the first prayer house was built in Burg. However, this turned out to be insufficient and was torn down again a short time later. On October 1st, 1751, Martin Friedrich Stein took up his work as the first pastor of Burger. In the same year a simple rectory was built. A half-timbered church was built in 1753 , but it burned down on September 30, 1766 in a major fire that also destroyed most of the other buildings in the village. In the fire, the civil registry of the civil society, begun in 1751, was destroyed. However, the first baptismal register has been preserved to this day. As a replacement for the church, a prayer house was built again in 1767. The building near the Leineweberfließ , reminiscent of a small barn, stood until 1960 when it was demolished.
Building the church
As the population continued to grow, the desire for a new church building grew. On September 30, 1799, 33 years after the major fire, the foundation stone was laid for the new church that still exists today. The original location of the half-timbered church was chosen as the location. During the construction work, the commissioned builder Wintzer was withdrawn, which led to a break in the construction work. In 1802, the master mason Grimm from Peitz was commissioned to continue the work. The topping-out ceremony was celebrated in 1802 before construction work came to a standstill again due to a lack of funds. The work had cost 8,000 thalers by then . 4000 thalers came from donations from the citizens of the city. 128,000 hours of voluntary work were done. At a petition to the king, the government financed the remaining amount of 4575 thalers required to complete the church, probably in view of the considerable contributions made by the citizens.
The two bronze bells were cast by the Fischer company from Königsberg and delivered on March 7, 1803. The price comes down to 837 thalers and twelve groschen. The consecration of the church took place on November 11, 1804. In 1810 a used organ was bought from the Drebkau community and a used church tower clock from Peitz . As a replacement for the cemetery that had become too small, a new cemetery was inaugurated in 1819 on the left side of the road to Werben, which was then expanded in 1872. In the years 1824/25 a new massive rectory was built. From 1844 a sexton's house was built, which, among other things, served local school instruction. In 1852 the ball, weather vane and star on the church tower had to be replaced.
As in other churches in the region, the services were held in both Wendish and German. For 1852 it is documented that the Wendish service began at 9 a.m. in the summer and was followed by the less frequented German-language service.
The first parish council election in Burg took place on September 8, 1860. Only the independent heads of families were entitled to vote if they were at least 24 years old. The candidates had to be at least 30. In 1865 the first major repairs to the church building were carried out. At the same time the church received a new organ built by the Remmler company from Berlin . The master carpenter Gottlieb Kauper, who lives in Burg, created a new pulpit and a new altar, as well as later the memorial plaques for the burger who died in the wars of 1866 and 1870/71 . In the course of a new roofing of the tower, the church received a lightning rod for the first time in 1872 . The nave was re-covered in 1881. In 1876 a new font was also purchased. The many works were also with a view to a festive preparation of the church on the occasion of the 400th birthday of the reformer Martin Luther, which was celebrated in 1883 . In the year of celebration itself, the Luther oak in front of the church was planted and the windows of the east gable were redesigned. Luther and Philipp Melanchthon were depicted with stained glass .
In 1895 the brick-built confirmation house, which still exists today, was built. It was used at times as a classroom for school classes. Otherwise it served as a classroom for confirmands and a meeting room for the parish council. The rectory had already been extended to the Dorfstrasse in 1874.
In 1899 the pastor asked Korreng to assign him an easier pastoral position, Burg was considered difficult due to the large spatial expansion of the parish area. This request was refused, but an assistant preacher was appointed to assist him. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the church in 1904, further renovations took place. This is how the sacristy and two wooden stairs to the east side of the galleries were created. The pulpit altar was moved 1.30 m to gain a larger forecourt. The views on morality at that time are reflected in the regulations for the organization of ceremonies that existed at that time. At the marriage of honorable bride and groom (virgin and bachelor) the big bell had to be rung and the organ played. In only one respectable part, only the organ was played. If both were considered dishonorable, the bell and organ remained silent. The same applied to the baptism of legitimate or illegitimate children.
In 1912 the church received low-pressure steam heating . The boiler room and chimney were built and plastering work was carried out. In the same year, the church tower clock received three new dials with a diameter of 1.60 m. The new pastor Riese, like his predecessor, complained about the hardships of the large community. He was also granted the position of assistant preacher, which had previously been abolished again and which initially existed until 1919 and was also taken into account later.
During the First World War , the larger of the two bronze bells had to be given up for armament purposes. The bell weighed 400 kg and was built in 1804. In February 1920, a new bronze bell was bought from Apolda .
In 1920 Martin Eitner became the new pastor in Burg. Before that he worked as a clergyman in Wittmannsdorf near Luckau . With him came his wife Gertrud Eitner , who later became a member of the Reichstag for the CSVD . In choosing Pastor Eitner, his knowledge of Polish also played a role. The community hoped that he would be able to preach in Sorbian, which he actually did.
Burger Church in the time of National Socialism
In the time of National Socialism , the elections for the parish council in Burg were no longer carried out in the usual way. For the election in July 1933, only the German Christians who were close to the National Socialists submitted a nomination. There was a formal objection to the election. As a result, two non-members of the German Christians also belonged to the Burger Parish Church Council via their election proposal. Hermann Handta had been cantor in the community since 1924 . Handta later became the local group leader of the NSDAP and also tried to implement his political views in church life. So he turned against the decision requested by Sorbian parishioners in favor of Vicar Herbert Zerna as the new pastor. However, there were people in the community members active in women's aid who professed to support the Confessing Church , which was opposed to National Socialism . In the overall picture, however, the parish was not behind positions of the Confessing Church. Kurt Kube, a member of the Confessing Church, who, according to instructions from the Brandenburg Consistory , was to start as assistant preacher in Burg on January 1, 1935, refused to take up his duties. The Confessing Church did not give its preachers in communities that were predominantly dominated by German Christians. In 1935, the NSDAP local group leader Handta was appointed chairman of the parish council. Later, Handta, presumably from the NSDAP, was given the choice to continue either as a party or as a church. Handta decided to continue the church function. In October 1945, after the end of the National Socialist tyranny, Handta was arrested by the Soviet secret police. He died of exhaustion in a camp in Jamlitz in 1946 or 1947 .
The new bronze bell acquired in 1920 had to be returned in 1942 for armament purposes. About half of the church roof was destroyed in the fighting for Burg at the end of World War II on April 24, 1945. The organ was damaged by penetrating water. In 1945 the roof and the organ were poorly repaired.
Burger Church in the GDR
From 1947 Christian youth days were held regularly in Burg, which radiated far beyond the municipality. The 2000 seats in the church were not enough, so loudspeakers had to be attached. The tradition of the youth days was, despite temporary hindrances by GDR authorities, continued into the 1990s and then abandoned in favor of regional youth days.
Various repair work was necessary to repair the war damage. The 1945 heavily damaged windows with figurative representations in the east gable were restored in Görlitz in 1952 . The nave was renovated, the organ was repaired in 1953 and 1954 by the Bautzen company Hermann Eule. Replacement for the lost bell was also purchased. Following an old plan, the bell was extended to three bells by purchasing two hard cast iron bells from the Schilling und Lattermann bell foundry in Apolda .
In 1954, the 150th anniversary of the church, 29 plaques with a total of 568 names were put up in the hall on the ground floor of the church tower and the room was redesigned as a memorial room to commemorate those who died in the two world wars. The stairs that originally led to the galleries here were relocated to the nave. In addition, the room received two colored windows supplied by Walter Deckwarth from Görlitz, which were not installed until 1955. An altar was erected in front of the window, giving the vestibule the character of a chapel. The northern side of this hall was decorated with the portraits of all pastors who had previously worked in Burg.
In 1965, the Schmogrow district , which had previously belonged to the Briesen parish, was added to the Burger community. In 1973 the Burger parish entered into a partnership with the parish of Oud-Beijerland in the Netherlands . Close relationships had previously existed with the West German community of Burscheid . The installation of a new organ created by the Sauer company from Frankfurt (Oder) in 1973 and the raising of the 90,000 marks required for this was also due to the help of these partners. The rectory was also modernized.
Burger Church after 1990
In 1996 a new community center was inaugurated. The construction was financed through the sale of the cantor house and a long-term lease made available for a property for an old people's home. The cemetery operated by the parish was given to the political community in 1994.
A fundamental renovation of the church followed. First of all, the church tower was renovated in 1998. In 2000 and 2001 the nave was re-roofed and the facade and windows were renewed. In 2001/2002 the interior ceiling was renovated, in 2002 the heating was renovated and finally in 2004 painting and flooring work as well as the restoration of the pews followed. The total cost was almost € 500,000.
In 2004 the 200th anniversary of the church was celebrated.
architecture
The church was built between 1799 and 1804 in the early classicist style. The facade is plastered, the roof is designed as a hipped gable roof . The retracted church tower is located west of the nave on a square floor plan. The tower, which is provided with a tent roof , is crowned by an octagonal lantern with a curved hood. On the tower there is a ball containing certificates and a weather vane with a star. The west wall of the church is structured by pilasters , the long sides are structured by pilaster strips . There are lobbies in the middle on the long sides. The sacristy was added on the east side in 1904 .
The length of the church is 41 m, with a width of 16 and a height of 36 m.
Furnishing
The interior of the church is characterized by a flat beamed ceiling and galleries on all sides . On the long sides the galleries are two-story. The pulpit altar, like the four chandeliers, dates from 1865. After the last renovations, the church, which was built for 2000 people, now offers space for 1200.
In the hall on the ground floor of the tower there are two historical tombstones. So that of Barbara Metzrad, who died in 1619, and Georg Matting, who died in 1849.
organ
The organ was built in 1973 by W. Sauer Orgelbau Frankfurt (Oder) . The slider chests -instrument has 23 stops on two manuals and pedal . The playing and stop actions are mechanical.
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P
To the north of the church is the Luther oak planted in 1883 . Also noteworthy is the tomb of Martin Schorradt, who died in 1829, which is designed as a sandstone pillar with a crowning urn.
literature
- Horst Büttner in Dehio, Handbook of German Art Monuments , Brandenburg . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-422-03054-9 , p. 163 f.
- Dieter Reichel: 200 years of the church in Burg . Parish Council of Burg / Spreewald 2004
Web links
- Entry in the monument database of the State of Brandenburg
- Website of the Evangelical Church Community Burg (Spreewald)
Individual evidence
- ↑ More information about the organ ( Memento of the original from January 21, 2016 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. .
Coordinates: 51 ° 49 ′ 59 ″ N , 14 ° 8 ′ 56 ″ E