Heiligenwalde Church
The Heiligenwalde Church (Russian: Uschakowo ) from the 14th century is a former East Prussian Protestant church.
Geographical location
The church is located in the middle of Uschakowo (municipality Nisowje) in Gurjewsk Rajon , in the Kaliningrad Oblast ( German Heiligenwalde, Neuhausen district , Königsberg area (Prussia) ). The building can be reached via a side road that branches off from the Russian trunk road A 229 (new route of the former German Reichsstrasse 1 ) and heads south.
Building history and description
The Heiligenwalder Church was built in the 14th century by the German order of knights . The foundation stone was laid in 1344. At this point there was a sacred forest of the Prussians , which they themselves were not allowed to enter. In order to break the pagan beliefs and to give expression to the Christian conviction, a church was built in this forest, which still exists as a building today and is also called "Church Heiligenwalde" ( Russian Кирха Хайлигенвалде ).
It is a single-aisled, unadorned plastered field stone and brick building with a closed choir and lattice tower .
As the oldest part of the building, the nave was made of field stones with brick corners. The choir was added in the first half of the 15th century. To the north were the flat-roofed vestibule and the sacristy . The north sides of the nave and the choir are windowless.
The tower was built in the second half of the 15th century. The superstructure with the half-timbered network was added later.
The interior of the church was spanned by a basket arched ceiling from the beginning of the 18th century. There was a sixteen-part vault in the choir . The triumphal arch was almost round-arched. On the north wall remains of medieval wall paintings (crucifix with tendrils) have been preserved, which probably date from the 1st half of the 15th century.
The church survived the Second World War . In the post-war period, however, it was used by a sovkhoz as a grain store. Although this caused numerous damage (such as on the tower, and the choir wall was broken through for vehicles to pass through), there was no destruction. However, the furnishings were lost, such as the pulpit from 1675 and the baroque confessional from 1673, which the Königsberg master Christian Klodssey had made, as well as the organ from 1761, which was built by Preuss in Königsberg. The kolkhoz director sold the wooden sculptures to Lithuania . The granite baptismal font and the holy water font still exist from the old days .
Evangelical parish (until 1945)
Parish
Heiligenwalde was already a church village in the pre-Reformation period. The Lutheran Reformation found its way here early. Belonged to the parish once for inspection Neuhausen (Russian: Guryevsk), it was then up to 1945 in the parish of Königsberg Country II in the ecclesiastical province of East Prussia the Prussian Union of churches incorporated.
After 1945 church life ceased due to the flight and expulsion of the local population. During the time of the Soviet Union , church activities were not allowed.
It was not until the 1990s that Protestant congregations formed again in the Kaliningrad Oblast . Ushakowo is now in the catchment area of the newly built Church of the Resurrection in Kaliningrad (Koenigsberg) , the main church of the newly formed Evangelical Lutheran provost of Kaliningrad of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of European Russia (ELCER).
Parish
Around the middle of the 19th century the parish comprised 27 localities or spots. Before 1945, an extensive parish belonged to the parish village of Heiligenwalde :
| German name | Russian name | German name | Russian name | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ellern | Pogau | Vysokoye | ||
| Friedrichswalde | Opornoje | Polish Werder , 1936–1945: Prussian Werder |
Artemyevo | |
| Gehlblum | Trubkino | Pomedia | ||
| Green meadow | Possinds | Roschtschino | ||
| Heiligenwalde (domain) | Molodetskoye | Rogues | Dworki | |
| Heiligenwalde (village) | Ushakovo | Schönwiese | ||
| Hohenrade | Vorobyovo | Schwillmühle | ||
| Kalkeim | Grushevka | stretch | ||
| Kranzberg | Susannenthal | |||
| Laubenhof | Vogelsang | |||
| Oblits | Gluchowo | Daring | Golovenskoye |
Pastor
From the Reformation to the end of the Second World War , the Protestant pastors in Heiligenwalde were:
- Clemens Schüler, from 1526
- M. Hillbrand, until 1564
- NN, from 1564
- Conrad Schwanenmeusel, 1569–1570
- Paul Gehrcke, 1570–1585
- David Schütz, from 1585
- Christoph Richter, 1606–1616
- Valentin Bergau, from 1616
- Petrus Eilhardus, 1646–1671
- Reinhold Seth, 1671-1701
- Johann Caspar Suchland, 1701–1741
- Theodor Friedrich Thiesen, 1742–1753
- Friedrich Wilhelm Benefeldt, 1753–1758
- Johann Ernst Grünmüller, 1758–1787
- Carl Ludwig Grünmüller, 1786–1840
- (Georg) Wilhelm Schiefferdecker, 1840–1874
- Johann Froelke, 1874–1885
- August Theodor Kaminski, 1886–1906
- August Chr. P. Walsdorf, 1906–1923
- Karl Hanne, 1923–1930
- Paul Kortzitzki, 1930–1945
Since 1990
In the early 1990s, the administration of Gurjewsk Rajon ( Neuhausen district ) took over the church building from the sovkhoz and handed it over to the Gurjewsk high school (Neuhausen) . This assumed responsibility for the upcoming maintenance measures and participated in the beginning of the restoration work. In 1993, an association for the preservation of the Church of Heiligenwalde eV was founded in Minden, Westphalia , which also provided the necessary start-up capital. The headmaster in Uschakowo Georg Gawrilowitsch Artemjew (1939-2006) was heavily involved in the preservation of the old church. On July 26, 1994, as part of the 650th anniversary of the village and the church, a service was held for the first time in the festively decorated church, which was broadcast on North German and Kaliningrad television. Then the gate for tractors that was built into the east wall was closed again and the windows were glazed again. The old entrances were given new doors, the interior plastered and the sacristy renovated. The tower got new beams and a roof made of copper sheet . The architect Viktor Mikhailovich Staruschkin directed the repair of the church . The interior was designed under the direction of Galina Engelewna . In autumn 2006 the restored building was inaugurated as an event center with a concert.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Heiligenwalde
- ↑ Uschakowo-Heiligenwalde at ostpreussen.net
- ↑ The Heiligenwalde Church
- ↑ The Heiligenwalde Church at ostdeutsches-forum.net
- ↑ 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.
- ^ Karl Emil Gebauer : Customer of the Samland or history and topographical-statistical picture of the East Prussian landscape Samland . Königsberg 1844, p. 126.
- ↑ The churches in Samland: Heiligenwalde
- ↑ Friedwald Moeller, Old Prussian Protestant Pastor's Book from the Reformation to the Expulsion in 1945 , Hamburg, 1968, pp. 52–53
- ↑ Schiefferdecker 1 (1807–1877) was active in 1827 in the preliminary connection of the Corps Masovia (# 21)
Web links
- Association for the Preservation of the Church of Heiligenwalde eV
- Russian page about посетил кирху Хайлигенвальде, a visit to the (restored) church Heiligenwalde, 2010, with photo
Coordinates: 54 ° 40 ′ 51 ″ N , 20 ° 49 ′ 54 ″ E