Thierenberg Church

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The church in Thierenberg in the East Prussian district of Fischhausen ( Samland ) was a plastered brick building and came from the middle of the 14th century. Over 450 years she was a Protestant church until then in the Soviet Union in the Kaliningrad Oblast preferred place Dunajewka abandoned, together with the church and was demolished 1946th

Geographical location

Thierenberg (Russian name: Dunajewka) existed until 1946 and is now a submerged place in the Russian district of Selenogradsk ( Cranz district ). Until 1945 Thierenberg was a train station on the Fischhausen –Marienhof line of the Fischhausener Kreisbahn . The village was on a north-south road that connects today's Otradnoje (Georgenswalde) with the main road from Kumatschowo (Kumehnen) to Kruglowo (Poland) further south . Across from the confluence of a side street coming from Gorkowskoje (Watzum) , if you look closely, you can still see a path that leads to the location of the church (with cemetery), which at the time was on a hill, of which only sparse remains of the foundations can be found.

Church building

The Thierenberg Church was a rectangular brick building without a choir with a west tower. The building was erected around 1350. Originally a flat ceiling was inserted, which was replaced by a vault in the 16th century. At the same time, the longitudinal walls were reinforced by placing pillars. Galleries were drawn in in 1610.

The church interior was rich in furnishings from the 15th to 17th centuries and strictly aligned with the altar . The focus here was a valuable late Gothic altar shrine from the period 1511 to 1518 with a carved Madonna , which had double wings, the painting of which is based on the life of the Virgin Mary by Albrecht Dürer . It bears the coat of arms of the Samland bishop Günther von Bünau , who was in office from 1505 to 1518 . A wooden crucifix from 1706 stood on the cafeteria . The pentagonal pulpit was the work of Melchior Breuer and was one of the most beautiful in Samland. The organ was created in 1832 by the organ builder Johann Scherweit from Königsberg (Prussia) , and the bells were made in 1522 and 1866.

In the years 1934 to 1936 the Thierenberg church underwent extensive restoration.

The church survived the Second World War unscathed. In order to create an airfield to the northeast of the village , the entire village and its church were demolished in 1946/47 for the purpose of procuring building material, so that today only sparse remains indicate the former church building.

Parish

Thierenberg was already a church village in the pre-Reformation period. The Reformation found its way here early on , and until 1945 the place had been the parish seat of a Protestant clergyman for more than 450 years , who had to look after an extensive parish . It belonged to the parish of Fischhausen (today in Russian: Primorsk) within the church province of East Prussia of the Church of the Old Prussian Union . In 1925 the parish with its 19 parish towns had a total of 1834 parishioners.

The flight and expulsion of the local population as well as the subsequent demolition of the village and its surroundings ended church life in Thierenberg in the post-war years.

Parish places

In addition to the parish of Thierenberg, 18 places belonged to the extensive parish of the Thierenberg Church:

Place name Russian name Place name Russian name
Arissau Bunk
Auerhof Comphnen Niwy
Bärholz Listopadowka Korwingen Olkhovoye
Drugthens Gusewka Lindenberg
Düringswalde Medullary tendons Krasnovka
Dulack Norgau Medvedevo
Cherry flap Druzhba Romanian
Klein Dirschkeim Dworiki Streitberg
Klein Norgau Ramenskoye Pasture stretching Shatrovo

Pastor

From the Reformation to the end of the Second World War , 22 Protestant clergy were in office in Thierenberg:

  • Laurentius Falckenhain, until 1569
  • Michael Schönwald, 1569–1600
  • Laurentius Vallembostel, 1600
  • Heinrich Störmer, 1600–1619
  • Johann Neander, 1619–1641
  • Ludwig Spilner, 1641–1669
  • Friedrich Thomae, 1669–1697
  • Samuel Engelbrecht, 1697–1705
  • Johann Engelbrecht, 1706–1729
  • Johann Martin Backhusius, 1729–1756
  • Johann Casemir Gazali, 1756-1794
  • Christian Gottlieb Nagel, 1794–1803
  • Friedrich Wilhelm Huwe, 1803-1809
  • Johann Georg Sommer, 1809–1812
  • Carl Heinrich Leberecht Schmidt, 1812–1828
  • Theodor Laudien, 1827
  • Carl Ludwig Volkmann, 1827–1838
  • Georg Eduard J. Ulmer, 1838–1853
  • Friedrich J. Lilienthal, 1854-1880
  • Karl W. Eduard Kohrt, 1880–1893
  • Julius Rudolf Strauss, 1894–1927
  • Richard Fritz Paluk, 1927–1945

Church records

Numerous documents have been preserved from the church registers of the parish of Thierenberg. Today they are kept in the Evangelical Central Archive in Berlin-Kreuzberg :

  • Baptisms: 1847-1944
  • Weddings: 1844 to 1944
  • Burials: 1855-1944

There is also a list of those killed in action between 1941 and 1944.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Patrick Plew, churches in Samland: Thierberg
  2. ↑ Walther Hubatsch, History of the Protestant Church in East Prussia , Volume II: Pictures of East Prussian Churches , Göttingen 1968, p. 37, Figs. 59 and 60
  3. ↑ Thierenberg at ostpreussen.net (with pictures of the church)
  4. ↑ Walther Hubatsch, History of the Protestant Church of East Prussia , Volume III: Documents , Göttingen 1968, p. 463
  5. ↑ Walther Hubatsch, History of the Protestant Church of East Prussia , Volume III: Documents , Göttingen 1968, p. 463
  6. ↑ Friedwald Moeller, Old Prussian Protestant Pastor's Book from the Reformation to the Expulsion in 1945 , Hamburg 1968, p. 142
  7. ↑ Christa Stache, Directory of the Church Books in the Evangelical Central Archive in Berlin , Part I: The Eastern Church Provinces of the Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union , Berlin 1992³, p. 111

Coordinates: 54 ° 50 ′ 25 ″  N , 20 ° 7 ′ 25 ″  E