Laaker Church
The Laaker Church is a Protestant church in the Wuppertal district of Laaken and since October 2003 with the church at Kriegermal in the center of Beyenburg one of two preaching sites of the Evangelical parish of Beyenburg-Laaken.
history
prehistory
In the first half of the 19th century , the first industrial companies settled in the narrow valley of the Wupper in what is now the district of Blombacherbach, which at that time still belonged to Lüttringhausen , mainly in the textile industry. Around the facilities of the Elberfeld textile printing company Schlieper & Baum, which expanded in the direction of Laaker Hammer in 1853 , the first small residences of the families of the workers who worked there quickly formed, which laid the foundation stone for what would later become the Laaken residential area. A similar development took place in neighboring Beyenburg, where a parish vicar had worked since 1854. The Beyenburgers had been planning to found their own parish for a long time, knowing full well that a lively parish life limited to Beyenburg would not be possible. The Laakens and Dahleraus working-class families, who were also extremely dissatisfied with the church supplies for the parish of Lüttringhausen , were thus included in the planning of a new parish . In 1851 the mayor of Lüttringhausen presented the first list of all Laak residents who were to be moved to Beyenburg. Contrary to all plans, Beyenburg broke away from Lüttringhausen in 1863, but without Dahlerau and Laaken, which remained with Lüttringhausen. Well marked by the success of Beyenburg against Lüttringhausen, committed citizens of Laak set up their first Bible study in a private house, and the residents of Erbschlös , Scharpenacken , Konrads desert and Hammesberg now stuck to Ronsdorf , which also wanted to break away from Lüttringhausen. Laaken continued to orientate itself undeterred towards Beyenburg. However, any unification plans were consistently rejected by Lüttringhausen.
In connection with a renewed population growth in the Laaker area, new voices were heard in 1890 to found a community of its own. The Lüttringhauser pastor officially approved the Laak Bible Study and moved it to the morning, for which 150 people appeared on the first day. On September 20, 1895, a representative from Lüttringhausen inspected the Laaken parish and ordered the existence of a place of worship and a parish apartment as a condition for the establishment of the parish. A first elected church council fell in 1898 to the new church district of Barmen .
On May 14, 1896, Bernhard Voswinckel, hitherto assistant preacher of the Lutheran congregation in Elberfeld, became the first pastor to take up the newly created parish of Laakens. Since then, May 14 has been the founding date of the congregation. The residential areas of Laaken, Eschensiepen, Blombacherbach, Werbsiepen , Kastenberg , Hammesberg and Konradswüsten now joined the new community . Church service was celebrated every Sunday in the Laaker schoolhouse, for which the Ronsdorf community provided the rooms. At times, up to 200 children were taught by a total of nine helpers in Sunday School. The church choir, which still exists today, was founded in the founding year. Also in that year Schlieper & Baum provided a plot of land to build a house of God and to set up their own cemetery , which could still be opened in late 1896.
Building the church
The laying of the foundation stone of the church and the rectory built together was celebrated on May 5, 1899. The inscription on the stone reads LK 9.62 1899 , it can still be seen today on the north outer wall of the church. On February 18, 1900, the church was opened in a ceremony in the presence of several representatives from all Protestant parishes in the city, and an invitation to the after-party was held in the Ackerstraße church hall in Heckinghausen . Due to the modest financial situation of the community, the vicarage had to be retained first, only on June 29, 1902, parish vicar Voswinkcel could be introduced as the first parish priest of the community Laaken-Blombacherbach. In 1907 Schlieper & Baum donated a second piece of land behind the church, on which the parish hall was built in 1907. This was also the community center of the Laaken district. On October 30, 1910, three new bronze bells were put into operation, with portraits of Martin Luther and the inscriptions A strong castle is our God and O land, land hear the word of the Lord! Glory to God in the highest! were decorated. On March 30, 1913, the parish hall was inaugurated.
War years
In the First World War fell 40 parishioners, priests Voswinckel left the church in 1915 after Rheydt . The following global economic crisis led to the founding of the Laaker Funeral Assistance Association, and in January 1925 the kindergarten that still exists today was opened in the Erbhöfen parish hall. In the same year the church was completely renovated for the first time, which was difficult to do due to the economic situation.
On April 10, 1932, Pastor Ernst Schiefer, an extremely social pastor, was introduced to the service. The Laaken-Blombacherbach presbytery, which until then had openly professed its support for German Christians , recognized under his leadership that German Christians were incompatible with the teaching of the gospel . Only three presbyters remained members of the German Christians after 1932. Pastor Schiefer now saw himself exposed to ever greater reprisals, in particular due to his increasingly strong direction towards the Confessing Church . On June 5th, the presbytery was one of the first communities in Wuppertal to clearly acknowledge the teachings of the Barmer Theological Declaration , regardless of the contradiction of the consistory. On the night of May 30, 1943, the roofs of the church and rectory as well as other parts of the building were badly damaged, but six bombed-out families were taken into the rectory. A total of 34 parishioners fell in the course of World War II .
The community after 1945
The buildings were initially poorly restored. On April 1, 1949, the Kemna / Beyenburger Strasse district, which until then belonged to Langerfeld , was incorporated into the community. Pastor Schiefer said goodbye to the congregation on the 1st of Advent 1959 and retired, he died in February 1986. He was buried in the Zu den Erbhöfe cemetery, which was inaugurated on May 30, 1957, right next to the church, which relieved the old cemetery Eschensiepen, only 300 meters away. The old Eschensiepen cemetery was closed in 2012 and has not been actively managed since then, the graves are now running out.
In the sixties the parsonage was converted into a multifunctional building with a parish apartment and a parish hall, a new parish office and a parish library were built on the ground floor. 1964 began planning for a fundamental redesign of the church. Among other things, the inclusion of a false ceiling halfway up was discussed, as was done in many other churches in Wuppertal (for example in the New Church and Christ Church in Elberfeld). Instead, the church was designed much more simply: the original two doors to the sacristy and the parish office behind the altar area were bricked up and moved to the south side, the altar wall was clad with plastic crosses and plastered and a flat ceiling was drawn in under the pointed gable roof, creating the original The neo-Gothic appearance of the church in the interior was irretrievably lost. Also in 1967 the old Eschensiepen cemetery was temporarily decommissioned as part of a redesign. On October 25, 1970, three new bells were inaugurated, and in January 1977 the first church letter appeared. On June 5, 1987, the Radevormwald assistant preacher Michael Schumacher was introduced as the new parish priest; he is still today (as of July 2017) pastor of the Beyenburg-Laaken parish.
On June 28, 1994, the first major fire severely damaged the church and parish hall. Improperly carried out handicraft work in the roof structure of the church quickly led to a fire in the parish hall on that particularly hot summer day, which irreparably damaged the roof structure of the parish hall and the church. The church hall was badly damaged mainly by fire water. The renovation of the church, which took place only three months later, made it possible to return to the original appearance of the interior in many design features. The false ceiling was removed and the remaining woodwork was added to the color of the church hall. The original pointed arches on the altar wall could also be restored, the wall crosses were removed and replaced with a light wooden cross. On May 28, 1995, the first service was celebrated in the renovated church, until then, at the invitation of the neighboring Catholic parish, the congregation moved to the church of St. Peter.
Association with Beyenburg
In October 2003, the previously independent parishes of Beyenburg and Laaken-Blombacherbach merged to form the new parish of Beyenburg-Laaken, which at that time had 2,563 members. This was followed by a concentration of the community work on the community center Steinhauser Straße in Beyenburg, from now on religious services are held in weekly alternation between the church at the Kriegermal and the Laaker church, on public holidays, due to the lack of a pastor's office, auxiliary preachers are used.
In spring 2008, a new renovation of the church began, which was successfully completed after a few weeks and cost a total of 25,000 euros. But on February 7th, 2008 another fire broke out in the church, again caused by improper craftsmanship. The newly plastered walls and the new chairs that replaced the old pews were all damaged and had to be repaired for more than 50,000 euros. The organ itself could still be saved, but had to be cleaned at great expense. The adjacent community center was spared major damage. Once again, the Catholic Church of St. Peter and the Church of the War Memorial were used; the church could only be reopened after several months.
future
Since the union with the Beyenburg community and the strong decline in membership in Laaken, community life has largely been concentrated on Beyenburg. Only a few community groups are still held in the Laaken community center, the Laaken community office only opens upon registration. Even the neighboring Catholic parish of Sankt Petrus was forced to give up its place of worship in 2015 because the population development in Laaken did not change positively as expected. A cessation of the operation as a place of worship would not even be unlikely for the Laaker Church if the church had not been renovated again after the fire damage in 2008 and thus it would have been future-proof for the next decades. In the absence of a cemetery chapel, it is also the venue for the funeral services for the Zu den Erbhöfen cemetery and, until its abandonment in 2012, also for the Eschensiepen cemetery. Thus, the use of the Laaker Church as a place of worship is secured, at least for the foreseeable future.
Building description
The church, which forms a structural unit with the parsonage, Zu den Erbhöfen 53, to the west is a small hall church built entirely from brick in the neo-Gothic style . The sixteen meter long and twelve meter wide nave is divided into four bays by four unusually large simple windows on each side, with the window on the north side in the altar area at the western end being just above floor level. All windows are designed as slightly pressed pointed arches and originally had very finely crafted tracery made of sandstone . A simple saddle roof covers the church, below the short roof overhang and in the triangular gable on the east side there is a simple arch-like brick frieze. The east gable has a small round gable window as well as the no longer existing and walled east window, the large steel main portal, which can be reached via a two-sided staircase.
A structural feature is the till early on the east gable roof skylights steeple executed. It stands out clearly from the red brick buildings around it and is covered with slate , which was completely out of fashion in church construction at that time. Despite the ogival double bell hatches at the height of the bell cage, the tower already sets the first accent to the Heimatstil , which was first described five years after the building of the church , which was completely unknown in the Bergisches Land until the building of the Redeemer Church in Wichlinghausen in 1913.
Bells
In the church tower hang three cast bronze church bells , which rang in the bell tower for the first time on October 25, 1970 and are now the third chime of the church. They replaced the second bronze bell from 1910 with the chimes g '' b '' d '', which in turn replaced the first steel two-bell bell from the early days, which was defective at that time and was replaced. The new bells have a total weight of 450 kilograms and ring a few minutes back at lunchtime in order not to conflict with the sound of the neighboring Catholic Church of St. Peter, which is completely different in terms of sound .
| Chime | Diameter (mm) | inscription |
|---|---|---|
| d '' | 680 | Shout out to the Lord |
| e '' | 605 | Praise the Lord |
| g '' | 510 | Praise the Lord |
inner space
Little has survived today from the originally neo-Gothic interior from the time after it was built. After its last renovation, the church interior is particularly bright and in a uniform color scheme. The church room is entered from the east via the main portal, which leads into a small foyer. On the east side of the room is the organ gallery , which is accessed via a small staircase from the church. Below the gallery, next to the shelves with the hymn books, there are additional chairs for large numbers of visitors, the main seating is in the front area of the church. The gallery, made entirely of wood, is held in gray tones, just like the exposed ceiling beams , and thus adapts to the rather bright church windows, which are made in various gray and white tones. Only the almost floor-to-ceiling north window in the altar area is, in contrast to the other windows, brightly colored and therefore illuminates the equally simple altar area in bright colors when light falls. The altar area rises slightly above the light wooden floor with two steps. The pulpit and altar are made of the same wood, whereby the altar was deliberately given a more table-like shape during the last major renovation work and the church, which was run in the unified tradition up to that point , is a clear reference to the Reformed tradition . In addition to two simple altar candles and the Bible , the altar is marked by a figure of the Good Shepherd , who is the handicraft of a member of the congregation who was influenced by South Tyrol . An equally proposed figure of the Madonna was rejected in favor of the shepherd figure, but the figure only got its representative place on the altar after the last redesign.
organ
The organ on the east gallery was built on the occasion of the first major renovation as a replacement for a badly damaged predecessor organ by the Berlin organ builder Karl Schuke and placed in the southern corner of the gallery. The previous instrument was an organ made around 1850 by the Gebrüder Weil organ builder from Neuwied ; the young community could buy the instrument cheaply second-hand. After the big fire in 1994, the damaged Schuke organ was repaired, but built into a new case with new mechanics in accordance with the renewed redesign of the church and placed in the middle of the gallery. It has fourteen stops on two manuals with pedal with mechanical playing and stop action .
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P
gallery
The church in 2007
View from the cemetery; The community hall to the west is clearly visible (here in the foreground)
The colorfully designed window on the north side of the altar
The figure of the Good Shepherd
Depiction of the Laaker Church on a ceramic tile, issued for the 100th anniversary of the congregation
literature
- Ev. Parish of Laaken-Blombacherbach: Lines of a 100-year history of the Protestant parish of Laaken-Blombacherbach , commemorative publication for the 100th anniversary of the parish, Wuppertal 1996
Web links
- Beyenburg-Laaken parish
- Eschensiepen cemetery and cemetery To the hereditary yards in the Wuppertal cemetery association
- Information about the church windows , Research Center for Glass Painting of the 20th Century eV
Individual evidence
- ^ Negotiation of the Elberfeld District Synod, held on June 30, 1896 in Barmen, ibid. Report of the Superintendent, pp. 6–8
- ↑ report d. Superintendent 1896/97 in: Negotiations for the Elberfeld District Synod, held on June 30, 1896/5. October 1897 on Barmen: Barmer Sonntagsblatt, vol. 39/1897, p. 317 f.
- ↑ Barmer Sonntagsblatt vol. 53/1910, p. 607
- ↑ On the Beyenburg-Laaken parish in the Wuppertal parish, accessed on July 20, 2017
- ^ Fire rages in Laaker Church - Westdeutsche Zeitung of February 8, 2008
- ↑ Laaken: Church remains closed for months - Westdeutsche Zeitung of February 15, 2008
- ↑ Beauty without words - The Evangelical Church in Laaken. The organ journal, accessed on July 20, 2017
Coordinates: 51 ° 15 '10.97 " N , 7 ° 14' 12.61" E