Didlacken Church

The Didlacken Church (1938–1946: Dittlacken Church , Russian Кирха Дидлакена ) is a simple, massive hall building with plastered field stones from 1783. The building was a Protestant church until 1945 in what is now called Telmanowo in the former East Prussia . After decades of external use, it is now left to decay.

Geographical location

Today's Telmanowo is seven kilometers southwest of the city of Tschernjachowsk (Insterburg) on the Russian trunk road A 197 (former German Reichsstrasse 139 ). The village is a settlement within the Swobodnenskoje selskoje posselenije (rural community Swoboda (Jänischken , 1938-1946 Jänichen) ) in the Chernyakhovsk district (district Insterburg ) in the Russian Oblast Kaliningrad (Königsberg (Prussia) ). The church building stands directly on the main street and is difficult to recognize as a church.

Church building

In 1665, the major general and governor of the fortress Pillau (today Russian: Baltijsk) Pierre de la Cave built a Protestant parish church in Didlacken. De la Cave was a religious refugee born in France and had acquired the Didlack estates. When his son Wilhelm de la Cave, the last of his tribe, died in 1731, the property and church fell to the state, which in 1836 sold the main property to Duke Leopold IV of Anhalt-Dessau . In 1731 the private patronage of the church passed to the king as patron.

The church from 1665 was a half-timbered building and burned down in 1757, including the rectory, as a result of the Russian invasion.

In 1783 a new church was built. It was a massive hall building in a simple form with a three-sided choir closure without a tower. A sacristy was added to the east . Windows and doors were walled in in the arch .

The interior of the church was very simple. It was covered flat, the galleries ran up to the east wall. The pulpit altar from the time the church was founded was a simple job. On its left there was a sandstone epitaph of the founder of the old church, Pierre de la Cave. A mausoleum was built for him in 1676 behind the brick sacristy , 30 square meters with a basket arched door .

In 1855 the church received an organ , the two bells from 1760 and 1762 hung in the attic of the church.

The church building came through the war almost unscathed. After that it was used by others for decades, its condition is ailing and it threatens to deteriorate more and more.

Parish

In 1665, not only was the first church built in Didlacken, but a parish with a parish office was also established. The church patronage was noble until 1731, then royal. In 1925 there were 3,450 parishioners in the parish who lived in 26 parish towns . The parish was incorporated into the church district Insterburg in the church province of East Prussia of the Church of the Old Prussian Union until 1945 .

The flight and expulsion of the local population brought church life to a standstill after 1945. In the Kaliningrad Oblast , new Evangelical Lutheran congregations did not form again until the 1990s, of which the one in Chernyakhovsk (Insterburg) is closest to the place now called Telmanowo. It is the parish seat for the Chernyakhovsk church region within the Kaliningrad provost of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of European Russia .

Parish places

Up to 1946 a total of 26 villages and small towns belonged to the parish of Didlacken Church:

German name	Name (1938-1946)	Russian name		German name	Name (1938-1946)	Russian name
Althof Didlacken	Althof-Dittlacken	Telmanovo		Small scripts
Brödlauken				* Kohlischken	since 1928: hat mill	Vershinino
* Didlacks	Dittlacken	Telmanovo		Kreywutschen
Einsiedel				Noble Laugallen	Dobenck	Staritskoye
Freudenberg		Rutschji		Leitnershof
Georgenhof				Steering slides	Schleifenau	Kapustino
Large platters	since 1928: Rehfeld	Borovoye		Neuhof Didlacken	Neuhof-Dittlacken
* Great scripts	since 1928: Fehlbrücken	Yuzhny		* Pabbling	since 1928: Amwalde	Sentsovo
Harpenthal	Harp Valley	Volodino		* Peterkehmen	Peterstal	Rutschji
Ischdagehlen	Brennersdorf	Matrossowo		Santilten	since 1928: incorrect stooping	Yuzhny
* Jänischken	Janichen	Swoboda		* Scheppetschen	Top loops	Karskoye
* Karlswalde				* Swirling
Small platters				* Uszballen 1936–1938: Uschballen	Dittau	Ossinovka

Pastor

Between 1665 and 1945, 17 Protestant clergymen officiated at Didlacken Church:

• Johann Reinicke, 1665–1686
• Johann Donalitius, 1686-1699
• Daniel Döerffer, 1699-1712
• Fabian Ulrich Glaser, 1712–1747
• Friedrich Hassenstein, 1748–1778
• Johann Samuel Schöneich, 1778–1790
• Friedrich Gottlieb Schultz, 1791–1799
• Johann Ludwig Engewald, 1800–1831
• Wilhelm Theodor Schimmelpfennig, 1831–1849
• Carl Ludwig Morgen, 1849–1859
• Carl Rudolf Voigt, 1860–1871
• Carl Fr. Phil. Ruhncke, 1871–1885
• Wilhelm Buss, 1885–1905
• Viktor Ulrich Chr. Krieger, 1905–1912
• Johann Christian Wenger, 1912–1939
• Ernst Knopf, 1941–1942
• Heinz Schenkel, 1943–1945

Church records

Of the church registers of the parish Didlacken (Dittlacken) survived the war and are now kept in the Evangelical Central Archive in Berlin-Kreuzberg :

• Baptisms: 1725-1770 and 1891-1944
• Weddings: 1880 to 1944
• Burials: 1721-1766 and 1881-1944
• Confirmations: 1906 to 1912
• Communicants: 1727 to 1739 and 1923 to 1944.

References

1. ↑ Кав Пьер де ля - Pierre de la Cave at prussia39.ru
2. ↑ Didlacken Church (with photo from 2009)
3. ↑ Walther Hubatsch , History of the Protestant Church in East Prussia , Volume 2: Pictures of East Prussian Churches , Göttingen, 1968, page 101 with ill. 439
4. ↑ The church interior today (photo from 2008)
5. ↑ Кирха Дидлакена - Didlacken Church (with photo from 2013)
6. ↑ Waltker Hubatsch, History of the Protestant Church of East Prussia , Volume 3: Documents , Göttingen, 1968, page 481
7. ↑ 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. 
8. ↑ Walther Hubatsch, as above, Volume 3, Page 481. - * = School locations
9. ↑ Friedwald Moeller, Old Prussian Protestant Pastor's Book from the Reformation to the Expulsion in 1945 , Hamburg, 1968, p. 31.
10. ↑ Voigt († 1871) was a member of the Corps Littuania . In 1848 he stayed with the Silber-Litthauer.
11. ↑ 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, page 34

Coordinates: 54 ° 35 '  N , 21 ° 45'  E