Luther Church (Vienna)

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Luther Church

The Luther Church is an Evangelical Lutheran church building in the 18th district of Währing in Vienna . The neo-Gothic building , built from 1896 to 1898 as the Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Jubilee Church, is one of the oldest and largest Protestant church buildings in Vienna .

Location and architecture

The Luther Church is at Martinstrasse 25 on Ganserlberg in the Währing district . The free-standing church building is framed in the south and west by the L-shaped Lutherhof , which serves as a rectory, school and residential building.

The neo-Gothic church, designed by the architects Theodor Bach and Ludwig Schöne , has a slender church tower with an octagonal pointed spire on the east side. Its copper sheet cladding dates from 1932/1933. On the sides there are low stair towers with conical roofs. The three portals on the east side have eyelashes . They are adorned with busts of Christ, Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon . The floor plan of the Luther Church follows the traditional scheme with a nave , transept and western choir . There are low stair towers on both sides of the choir, to the west of which is the sacristy . In addition to the predominant neo-Gothic style, there are also isolated neo-Romanesque elements in the Luther Church .

Inside, the Luther Church is painted in a neo-Gothic style. There are a total of 767 seats. Large stairs on both sides of the vestibule under the main tower lead to the galleries . At the altar is a monumental figure of Christ preaching from the end of the 19th century. The neo-Gothic pews, the lighting fixtures and the steamed-up doors also date from the construction period. The stained glass on the rose window in the choir was created in 1945. The tracery windows in the nave were designed by the glass painter Franz Götzer from 1951 to 1953 , while the glass paintings in the sacristy, in the stair towers and on the lower windows in the nave were created by Franz Déed from 1962 to 1965 . In 1963, the sculptor Gustinus Ambrosi designed the sound cover of the wooden pulpit, which dates back to the 19th century, as well as the baptismal font and the communion bench. The war memorial picture on the war memorial is a work by Karl Alexander Wilke from 1923. The organ from 1901 comes from EF Walcker & Cie. and was rebuilt in 1968/1969.

history

Lutherhof with entrance to the rectory

The neo-Gothic Lutherhof was built before the Luther Church, namely in 1894/1895. It is also the work of the architects Theodor Bach and Ludwig Schöne. The Luther Church itself was built from 1896 to 1898. It was originally named Kaiser-Franz-Joseph-Jubiläumskirche after the fiftieth anniversary of the reign of Emperor Franz Joseph I. After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1918, it was renamed the Luther Church.

The Luther Church is the fourth oldest Lutheran church building in Vienna, after the Lutheran City Church , the Gustav Adolf Church and the Christ Church at the Matzleinsdorf Evangelical Cemetery . It is also the first Lutheran church in Vienna to have a steeple, which was forbidden for Protestant church buildings until the Protestant patent of 1861.

During the Second World War , the Luther Church was badly hit by aerial bombs. The large dome of the church was so badly damaged that it was in danger of collapsing. The roofs of the church were covered, all windows destroyed, the doors ripped out and weaker walls were knocked down. It was only in 1946 that provisional safety precautions could be taken to protect the building. By the 50th anniversary of the Luther Church on the 1st of Advent 1948, the inside of the church building could be restored and painted. However, the work on the more serious damage should still take a few years to complete.

A memorial plaque inside the church reads:

“This church was badly damaged by bombs on March 12, 1945 as a result of the war. It was able to be restored with God's help and voluntary gifts from our own congregation and through significant donations from fellow believers from home and abroad in the years 1946-1955. 'Where the Lord does not build, those who build on it work in vain', Psalm 127, 1st set on the occasion of the annual meeting of the Gustav-Adolf-Verein in Austria. Pastor Jakob Wolfer , Church Councilor Prof. Dr. Egon Hajek, church father, master builder Kohutek, curator church councilor Johann Wetjen, former curator Ing. Albin Hermann. Vienna, September 17, 1955. "

Since 1949 the Luther Church has been owned by the Evangelical Parish AB Wien-Währing, which belongs to the Vienna Superintendent and is responsible for the Lutheran Evangelicals of the 17th and 18th districts of Vienna. In the 1970s, the later superintendent Paul Weiland was vicar in the parish. From 2008 to 2010, the exterior of the Luther Church was renovated.

literature

  • Jakob Wolfer: Festschriften on the occasion of 60 years of the Luther Church , 70 years of the Luther Church , 80 years of the Luther Church .

Web links

Commons : Lutherkirche  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dehio-Handbuch Wien. X. to XIX. and XXI. to XXIII. District . Edited by Federal Monuments Office. Anton Schroll, Vienna 1996, ISBN 3-7031-0693-X , pp. 465-467

Coordinates: 48 ° 13 ′ 13 ″  N , 16 ° 20 ′ 25 ″  E