Church closure

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Interior of the Aegidienkirche in Hann. Münden , rededicated in 2006, Café Aegidius since 2010
Property of the St. Barbara Church in Goslar-Sudmerberg after the demolition (October 2019)

A church closure is the end of the use of a church as a sacred building . The task of a church building is usually associated with an act of worship, which in the Roman Catholic Church is called profanation and in the Protestant churches as deedication. Before a demolition , people often look for options for conversion. There are different regulations and recommendations for this in the individual churches.

A church can be closed for various reasons, such as moving to another building, lack of money due to declining church tax revenues , demographic change , the closure of a monastery , restructuring plans within a diocese or a regional church or the decline in the number of visitors to church services . Churches are also closed in the case of large-scale resettlements such as the construction of dams and the construction of open-cast mines . Sometimes a new church or chapel is built in the resettlement area.

Historic church closings

Temporary church closings were common, especially during major war events and during occupations and billeting by armies. They were converted into horse stables, hospitals and other useful buildings. The reallocations of churches in the Islamic episode of Europe or the socialist era have meanwhile largely ended again and thus turned out to be temporary.

Islamic expansion

The Islamic expansion meant the end of Christian rule in North Africa, the Middle East and Spain. In the religious sphere, the Arabs were relatively tolerant: followers of the book religions - i.e. Christians in particular - had to pay a special poll tax ( jizya ), were allowed to keep their faith, but were not allowed to practice in public and not to carry any weapons or were not called up for military service. This status is known as Dhimma . Apart from attacks during the conquests, it was not until later (so noticeable in the 9th century, when churches were looted and destroyed) that there were major riots on the part of the Muslims. The tax burden also increased later. The chronicle of Pseudo-Dionysius von Tell Mahre is an important source for this repression . Even if Christians were tolerated, by far the greatest number of church congregations perished over the centuries due to the disadvantages of the Christian religion. The dioceses became pure titular dioceses , the churches were closed.

The Crusades and the Reconquista , conversely, led to a reduction and termination of Islamic life in the countries reclaimed for Christianity. At the beginning of the modern era it was the expansion of the Ottoman Empire that led to the suppression of Christianity and thus to church closings in the conquered countries of Europe. Numerous churches were converted into mosques, including the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (Turkey, then Constantinople in the Byzantine Empire), the Sophia Church in Ohrid (Macedonia) and the Matthias Church in Budapest .

Reformation and Secularization

The Reformation also led to numerous church closings. These particularly affected chapels. More often there were several in one city. They were used as stables, stores or as quarries. In Halle (Saale), for example, chapels like the Martinskapelle, from whose stones the cemetery walls of the Stadtgottesacker were built, disappeared , the Michaeliskapelle on the Alter Markt became a residential building and the St. Mathiae chapel became a cookshop. Other chapels (St. Nikolai, St. Lamperti, St. Andreae) were also closed, but then sold and demolished to deliver building materials. The same can be said for almost every city. Even in the small Harz town of Wippra , two of the three sacred buildings were closed and converted. The secularization in Bavaria in the years 1802–1803 had similar consequences , for example in Bamberg , where - similar to Halle 300 years earlier - numerous chapels were closed and sold.

Wars

Temporary church closings can be observed again and again in the war zones. During the Seven Years' War, for example, the Church of Our Lady in Frankenberg became a military hospital in 1759 and Marienmünster Abbey in 1761 became a stable. Similar processes are also known from the Thirty Years' War .

During the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig in 1813, the nearby Halle (Saale) became a hospital town and, among other things, all churches (except Ortisei) were converted into hospitals. There are photos of churches that were used as hospital wards during World War I, for example from Montcornet, Chambley or Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen.

Socialist states

The persecution of religious communities in the Soviet Union , the Eastern Bloc and the other socialist states led to a high number of forced church closings. Despite support from the "free West" such as Ostpriesthilfe , it was not possible to keep the parishes .

Many of these profane churches were used for other purposes. For example, the Lutheran St. Petri Church in Saint Petersburg became a bathing hall, the Protestant St. Stephen 's Church in Halle (Saale) became a library warehouse, and the St. Kiliani Church in Mühlhausen became a warehouse for a car workshop.

Current situation in Germany

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In the 1950s and 1960s many churches were built in West Germany . Many churches had been more or less destroyed in the Allied bombing of German cities. The number of believers rose sharply due to flight and displacement . In areas dominated by industry, there was a strong influx of workers. City quarters were rebuilt, in which new churches were built, as there was a need due to the high number of people attending church services at the time. Sometimes new buildings were built to replace existing but too small churches, so that some parishes finally had two church buildings. The financial resources available in the wake of the economic miracle also made the new building easier .

Church closings

Since the 1980s, the number of church members in the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic has decreased for various reasons, and the remaining church members also attended church services less often. After the accession of the GDR countries to the scope of the Basic Law, this did not change.

The decline in membership also has organizational consequences. By creating new forms of organization such as pastoral rooms , functions are merged and personnel and material costs are saved. In the meantime, many of the church buildings built in large numbers and built in concrete from the post-war period are in need of renovation. Repairs are usually costly, at the same time the necessary financial resources are missing and the church building is only used very little.

Convent churches also belong in the context of church closings . Almost all orders and congregations are currently experiencing a strong aging of the population due to the lack of new members. As a result, numerous monasteries had to and must be given up, including the associated churches, some of which were previously open to the public.

Church demolitions

Demolition of St. Lambertus Church in Immerath for open-cast lignite mining (2018)

According to the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), a total of 102 churches were demolished between 1990 and 2014. 262 more were sold during this time. According to the EKD, there were 387 new churches and 160 acquisitions during the same period.

According to the German Bishops' Conference, 366 churches across Germany have been decommissioned in the Catholic Church since the beginning of the 20th century; 84 of these churches were sold and 88 were demolished.

Monument protection

Mainly in the areas in East and Central Germany that are marked by shrinking processes, but also in West German regions, such as B. in the Ruhr area , dioceses, regional churches or individual parishes give up church buildings, have them disorganized or profaned . It is a social question how many or which churches are received as cultural heritage , declared as monuments and preserved for future generations. Churches compete here with other old buildings, e.g. B. Industrial monuments . Since the end of the 1990s, the financial resources of monument preservation are no longer sufficient to save them from deterioration. The profanation of sacred buildings, such as cultural churches, concert halls, museums, libraries or by incorporating them into residential construction is therefore an opportunity to preserve urban dominants and common reference points in the long term. The church building as the place of the congregation stands in a tense relationship between the church's wishes for change and the preservation claims of the monument preservation.

While the preservation of medieval or baroque churches and buildings of historicism is widely accepted by the public, buildings from the post-war period are often viewed by the general public as not worth preserving, as the concept of the monument is commonly associated with old age and sometimes denies its artistic value becomes. In the case of church buildings in the newly created city districts, there is often no connection between the population and “their” church that has grown over generations, as is the case with older buildings in rural communities. However, since post-war buildings in particular are often affected by closings and require expensive renovations, it is a particular challenge for those responsible to convey the monument value of these buildings, as otherwise an entire chapter of architectural history could be lost.

Even where it is possible to preserve a secular church building through conversion, considerable interventions in the building fabric are usually necessary: ​​If, for example, apartments or offices are installed, the former interior is mostly lost due to the necessary intermediate ceilings and walls. The question that often arises here is to what extent the conversion of the building has retained the building at all, or whether it almost corresponds to the demolition and rebuilding of the property, especially if there are interventions in the exterior of the building and significant changes in the area ( e.g. erection of further buildings on the outside area belonging to the former church). This is particularly the case if the conversion takes place under predominantly economic aspects and the highest possible return must be achieved.

piety

In addition to the artistic or historical value of a church building, the question of piety also plays a role. According to the conception of the Catholic Church, a profane church is an ordinary building that can be used for another purpose without violating the rules of faith; however, in the episcopal decrees on the profanation of a church, it is usually also required that the building should be given a “not unworthy destination”. Appropriate further use is also usually desired by the believers, but use that contradicts the character of a former religious place (e.g. as a nightclub) is rejected. However, the practical implementation of such requirements appears difficult, since an appropriate solution can be agreed with the buyer in the event of a sale, but there is no longer any legal action in the event of another change of ownership. The Bonn liturgy scholar Albert Gerhards points out that the “immaterial value” that the church represents for the local people should also be recognized; he calls churches “identity-creating spatial brands”, which often characterize districts.

In a broader sense, this also applies to the furnishing of a church building, since consecrated objects or relics must be removed; However, the question then arises of appropriate storage of such pieces. The episcopal decrees mostly mention a use in the original sense elsewhere; but is z. For example, the need for altars for other church buildings is usually only small, especially since the few new church buildings still to be built are usually redesigned and made to match the architecture. Depositing items of equipment in church museums is not only costly (documentation, proper expansion, permanent and safe packaging, transport, etc.) , especially in the case of large and sensitive objects such as lead glass windows , but also causes considerable space problems in the museum depots, which are usually already full. The diocese of Münster, for example, needed five depots to store the inventory of closed churches in 2020. A sale through the art trade appears problematic under the aforementioned aspects of piety, especially since there is no great demand for sacred art of post-war modernism. A decision will also have to be made as to which objects, due to their quality, should not be sold anyway, but should be kept as important evidence of their epoch. In some cases, pieces of equipment are exported and given to foreign municipalities, whereby the aforementioned question must also be asked here. There are companies that specialize in selling used church organs ; Since these instruments can also be used in the secular area, they can only be compared to a limited extent with exclusively sacred objects.

Scope of church closings

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

More church buildings were closed in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom than in Germany.

List of closed churches

Preliminary remark

From a church perspective, the re-use of a church has priority. A Catholic church is being profaned and a Protestant church is being divested , so that the building is no longer considered a place of worship.

Baptists

  • Göttingen , Baptist Church: built 1902–1906, closed in 1984 (reason: the church was rebuilt on a plot of land opposite), converted into a cinema.

Evangelical Church in Germany

Methodist Church

  • Gelenau / Erzgeb. , Church: consecrated in 1907, today used as a GDR museum
  • Thum , Friedenskirche: built in the 1950s, deedicated, demolished in 2014

New Apostolic Church

Roman Catholic Church

Churches outside Germany

Italy

United Kingdom

See also

literature

  • Patrick Nitsch: The policies of the Protestant and Roman Catholic Churches on the change in use of church buildings in Germany with special consideration of the situation in Berlin . Diploma thesis in the social sciences course at the Humboldt University of Berlin , Institute for Social Sciences, December 21, 2005.
  • Eva Marin (Ed.): Converted Churches . Tectum Publishers, Antwerp 2007, ISBN 978-90-76886-44-2 (Re-dedicated churches in Europe and USA. With numerous illustrations of the state after the renovation and architectural floor plans for the new use. Text: English, French, Dutch).
  • History workshop Oberhausen e. V. (Ed.): Between heaven and earth - church death can open up new possibilities . In: Shift change. Journal for the history of Oberhausen . May / October 2008 edition, p. 26 f.
  • Godehard Hoffmann: Modern Church Construction and Monument Protection - A Work Report . In: Yearbook of the Rheinische Denkmalpflege 40/41, Worms 2009, pp. 17–30.
  • Johanna Anders: New Churches in the Diaspora. A study of the new church buildings after 1945 in the north Hessian part of the diocese of Fulda , Kassel 2014 [zugl. Diss., Kassel, 2012] (with a catalog of these churches, including those profaned / converted from them).
  • Martin Bredenbeck : The future of sacred buildings in the Rhineland (picture - room - celebration 10), Regensburg 2015 [zugl. Diss., Bonn, 2012].
  • Christian Thiele ( dpa ): Demolition of the church - and now? Evangelical community in Neustadt am Rennsteig collects ideas for a special place of remembrance. Leipziger Volkszeitung , December 28, 2016, p. 4
  • René Hartmann, Tino Mager, Stefan Krämer: Church buildings and their future Refurbishment - conversion - conversion . Ludwigsburg: Wüstenrot Foundation, 2016.
  • Hubertus Halbfas: The future of our church buildings, problems and solutions . Patmos, Ostfildern 2019, ISBN 978-3-8436-1112-1 .
  • Rainer Fisch: Conversion of church buildings in Germany. German Foundation for Monument Protection Monuments Publications 2008, ISBN 978-3-936942-95-8

documentary

  • Houses of worship for sale - church closings between loss and opportunity . Documentation by the Folklore Commission for Westphalia and the LWL Media Center for Westphalia, Germany 2011, approx. 47 min., ISBN 978-3-939974-18-5 (DVD with ROM part)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See, for example, the history of Christianity. Vol. 4: Bishops, monks and emperors (642-1054) . Edited by G. Dagron / P. Riché / A. Vauchez. German Edition ed. by Egon Boshof. Freiburg u. a. 1994, p. 395f. and p. 430.
  2. ↑ On the “view of the vanquished”: Kennedy, The Great Arab Conquests , p. 344ff.
  3. ↑ See also list of church buildings and shrines that have been rededicated as mosques . Conversely, mosques were later turned into churches. For example the Mezquita-Catedral de Córdoba .
  4. ↑ Cf. Carl Christian Lebrecht Franke: History of the Hallische Reformation , Halle 1841, pp. 226–231.
  5. ^ Cf. Cyriakus Spangenberg : Mansfeldische Chronica : St. Vitus and St. Nikolaus were closed. Up until then, St. Vitus was the town church, which has now been replaced by the St. Mary's chapel.
  6. ↑ See Renate Baumgärtel-Fleischmann : Bamberg becomes Bavarian. The secularization of the Bamberg Monastery 1802/03 , Bamberg 2003.
  7. ^ Karl-Hermann Völker: battlefield and hospital. The Gothic church was almost destroyed in the Seven Years War , in: Hessische / Niedersächsische Allgemeine on February 25, 2011, accessed on September 28, 2016.
  8. ^ For example, from the Bartow Church in 1726 or the town church "Zur Gotteshilfe" in Waltershausen .
  9. ↑ Gottschalk, Werner, Halle in the year of the Battle of Nations in 1813 (Part 2), in: Ekkehard NF 13 (2006) 2, pp. 33–50, here pp. 36–39.
  10. ↑ Since such images are often only temporarily available on the Internet, refer only to the image from Montcornet ( memento of the original from September 28, 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. referenced. There is a picture with a report of the Lukaskirche in Frankfurt-Sachsenhausen from the Frankfurter Rundschau : The church as a field hospital - Frankfurt, anno 1916 ( Memento from September 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gettyimages.de
  11. ↑ Stefan Kaempf: The Swimming Pool Church in St. Petersburg , in: Deutsche Welle on August 6, 2013, accessed on September 28, 2016.
  12. ↑ Michael Falgowki: Land wants to sell Stephanuskirche , in: Mitteldeutsche Zeitung on January 11, 2016, accessed on September 28, 2016.
  13. ^ The Kilianikirche ( Memento from September 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ).
  14. ↑ a b dpa: Church: Monument should remind of the demolished church. In: Focus Online . December 27, 2016, accessed October 14, 2018 .
  15. ↑ a b Christian Thiele: Demolition of the Church - and now? Evangelical community in Neustadt am Rennsteig collects ideas for a special place of remembrance. dpa report in the Leipziger Volkszeitung, December 28, 2016, p. 4.
  16. ↑ On the conversion of church monuments ( Memento from January 4, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Website Monument Debates
  17. ↑ https://www.bistum-trier.de/no_cache/bistum-bischof/bistumsverwaltung/kirchliches-amtsblatt/details/amtsblatt/dekret-ueber-die-profanierung-der-kapelle-st-martin-in-remagen/
  18. ↑ a b Tobias Glenz: Church demolitions: “We are only at the beginning.” Theologian Gerhards warns of drastic developments. In kathisch.de, October 7, 2017.
  19. ↑ Ann-Christin Ladermann: Warehouses full of history , March 10, 2020, accessed on March 21, 2020.
  20. ↑ A cinema, café and apartments are built in the Baptist Church. goettinger-tageblatt.de, November 9, 2018, accessed on March 8, 2019.
  21. ↑ http://www.weser-kurier.de/bremen_artikel,-Schlussfeier-fuer-Ellener-Brok-_arid,1132185.html
  22. ↑ http://www.monumente-online.de/11/03/leitartikel/Kirchenumnutzen.php
  23. ↑ http://www.myheimat.de/stadtallendorf/kultur/die-evangelische-herrenwaldkirche-in-stadtallendorf-wurde-am-31122013-entwidmet-03032009-m3222131,2620914.html
  24. ↑ Archived copy ( Memento of February 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
  25. ↑ https://www.tu-chemnitz.de/advent/2008/20/
  26. ↑ http://www.freipresse.de/LOKALES/ERZGEBIRGE/ANNABERG/Abrissbagger-tilgt-Friedenskirche-aus-dem-Thumer-Stadtbild-artikel9035879.php
  27. ^ The Building Hotel. fr.tripadvisor.be, accessed December 17, 2018.
  28. ↑ Rüdiger Wala: Noted. In: Day of the Lord. Edition 38/2019 of September 22, 2019.
  29. ↑ Conversion of church buildings. monumente-shop.de, accessed on February 21, 2019.