Paterswalde Church
The church in Paterswalde is a neo-Romanesque building from the years 1876/77 and was a Protestant church in what is now called Bolschaja Poljana until 1945 . It was transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1993 , but regular use is still pending.
Geographical location
The former Paterswalde is three kilometers south of the former East Prussian district town and now rural settlement Snamensk (Wehlau) in the Kaliningrad Oblast ( Königsberg (Prussia) area ) on the Russian trunk road R 514 (former German Reichsstraße 142 ). The nearest train station is Snamensk on the Kaliningrad – Nesterow railway line (Königsberg – Stallupönen / Ebenrode) , the former Prussian Eastern Railway . The church building is west of the main street.
Church building
Paterswalde was already a parish village in the time of the order when a church was built here around 1363. It emerged from a former pilgrimage chapel south of the village. During the equestrian war of 1520/21, the place with the church was destroyed by Polish troops. In the years 1541/42 the church was restored and the place was rebuilt around it.
In 1869 the church had to be closed and then demolished. On June 23, 1876 we laid the foundation for the present in neo-Romanesque style brick building with a tower built church whose inauguration took place on December 9. 1877 The pulpit from 1591 and the altar from 1700 could be taken over from the old church. The altar was richly carved, the predella showed the Last Supper , the main floor the crucifixion of Jesus , and two Holy Communion angels could also be seen. All these details were seen as pieces of art from the workshop of Johann Christoph Döbel . The church received an organ in 1881.
In the final battles of the Second World War , the structure suffered major damage, particularly on the tower (it was stripped of its high point, among other things). After 1945 the church was repurposed and used as a warehouse. The windows were bricked up and the roof was covered with asbestos-cement sheets. In 1993 the building was transferred to the Russian Orthodox Church , which only partially renovated it and left the decision on its future use.
Parish
A parish was founded in Paterswalde around 1363. At that time the place was still called "Allendorf". From the chapel in the nearby forest, the priest came here to the place, which then became "Paterswalde". The first Lutheran pastor officiated here from 1550. In 1925 the parish had 2218 parishioners who lived in 13 different parish locations. Until 1945 the parish of Paterswalde belonged to the church district Wehlau in the church province of East Prussia of the Protestant church of the Old Prussian Union .
Because of the flight and expulsion of the local population as a result of the war, church life collapsed after 1945 in what was then called Bolshaya Polyana .
It was not until the 1990s that Germans from Russia settled here , who had retained their Lutheran piety through the time of the Soviet Union and founded a congregation here. With strong support from Germany, the dilapidated former kindergarten was converted into a community hall, which was inaugurated in 2002 and now also functions as a place of worship. A bell donated by the Paul-Gerhardt-Stift in Berlin and which had previously rung in a Berlin church was hung in a separate belfry . The consecration of the bells took place on June 16, 2003.
The still small Evangelical Lutheran congregation is a branch congregation of the Church of the Resurrection in Kaliningrad (Königsberg) in the Kaliningrad provost of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of European Russia .
Parish locations (until 1945)
In addition to the parish , twelve other villages belonged to the evangelical parish of Paterswalde until 1945:
| Surname | Russian name | Surname | Russian name | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Augken | Patershof | |||
| Georgenberg | * Richau | Telmanovo | ||
| Julienhof | * Rockelkeim | Ulyanovka | ||
| * Lindendorf | Jagodnoye | Rödersbruch | ||
| Mariendorf | rose Garden | |||
| Oelsenau | Stanillia | Clubichnoye |
(* = School location)
From 1928 onwards , the parish priest in Paterswalde was also responsible for looking after the Allenberg Church in the sanatorium (formerly known as the “lunatic asylum”) in Allenberg (Russian: Chlebnikowo), a district of Wehlau.
Pastor (1550–1945)
Between 1550 and 1945 there were 31 Protestant clergymen in Paterswalde:
|
|
Church records
Numerous church records of the parish priest forest have been preserved and are in the Evangelical Central Archives in Berlin-Kreuzberg kept:
- Baptisms: 1629-1844
- Weddings: 1629 to 1843 (gap: 1670 to 1693)
- Burials: 1718-1843
- Communicants: 1787 to 1806.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The village of Bolschaja Poljana - Paterswalde at ostpreussen.net
- ↑ Walther Hubatsch , History of the Protestant Church in East Prussia , Volume II: Portraits of East Prussian Churches , Göttingen, 1968, page 83, fig. 323-325
- ↑ Walther Hubatsch, History of the Evangelical Church of East Prussia , Volume III: Documents , Göttingen, 1968, page 475
- ↑ 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. (German Russian)
- ↑ Walther Hubatsch, History of the Protestant Church in East Prussia , Volume II (as above), page 475
- ↑ Friedwald Moeller, Old Prussian Evangelical Pastors' Book from the Reformation to the Expulsion in 1945 , Hamburg, 1968, page 108
- ↑ Christa Stache, Directory of the Church Books in the Evangelical Central Archive in Berlin , Part 1: The Eastern Church Provinces of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union , Berlin, 1992³, pages 90–91
Web links
Coordinates: 54 ° 35 ′ 40.5 ″ N , 21 ° 12 ′ 54.5 ″ E