Small Evangelical Church (Kleve)
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The Small Evangelical Church is a church building in the district town of Kleve on the Lower Rhine in North Rhine-Westphalia. It belongs to the Evangelical Church Community of Kleve. The church, consecrated on the Sunday after Whitsun 1621 under the name of Trinity Church (templum ss trinitatis ) is popularly known as the Little Church. It was originally the Lutheran church in the traditionally denominationally tolerant Prussian residence city of Kleve.
history
Until the construction of the church, which fell during the Thirty Years' War , the Lutheran congregation in Kleve, consisting primarily of officials from the Prussian government and their families, met in private houses and later in a hall in the Schwanenburg. In 1612 Sebastian Hornung came to this parish as a young pastor. Soon after taking up his post, the clergyman from Franconia set out on several preaching and collecting trips through Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden to raise money for the construction of a church. When he returned in 1618, the money was not only enough to build the church, but also to build a rectory and a school.
The foundation stone was laid on September 4, 1619. In the original gable, there is the number 1620 written by wall anchors, which indicates rapid progress in the building shell. In 1621 the church was finished. After the Thirty Years' War ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, it received a bell that is now hanging in the "Dachreiter" tower again. This bell was drawn in as a metal reserve during the Second World War and came back to Kleve through the mediation of a Catholic priest who dissolved the bell camp.
At the time of the occupation by Napoleon's troops, the church served as a straw magazine in 1794.
Since 1817, the Association of Lutheran congregation with the reformed community in the context of the " Prussian Union " it belonged to the destroyed in World War II Great Church below the Schwanenburg to the two churches of the Uniate community .
During the time of National Socialism, the Klever community split up among the supporters of the Confessing Church and took over the Great Church, while the German Christians celebrated “services” under the swastika flag in the Small Church .
Although the small church was also badly damaged by the bombing raids in October 1944 and February 1945, it was rebuilt by 1955, but the interior was changed. Today it is quite centrally located in the old town near the “Neue Mitte” shopping center. In 2005/06, the inside of the church was restored once more and received technical equipment for the 21st century. It is used as an “open church” as a space of silence, encounters and as an exhibition and concert space.
Furnishing
In the church, which has been restored in the style of the 21st century, the interior is kept in white, with black upholstered seating and a red-covered altar wall - intended as a deliberate contrast - hangs the chandelier from the former Great Church from the 18th century, a gift from the Great Elector to the Reformed Congregation in Kleve.
The baptismal bowl of the small church bears the "Baptism command" from Matth. 28 without the words "in all the world", apparently for reasons of space.
The original bell from 1647 bears the inscription: "Johan Philipsen heft mei gotten, dor dat fier bin ick flew". The second bell is a new casting from 1955.
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 47 '9.7 " N , 6 ° 8' 2.6" E