Markuskirche (Essen)

St. Mark's Church

The St. Mark's Church is a Protestant church in Essen district Frohnhausen . It is a church of the Evangelical Parish Essen-Frohnhausen, which belongs to the Essen church district and thus to the regional church of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland .

history

prehistory

After the Apostle Church in the center of Frohnhausen was inaugurated in 1913 , it became clear that another community center would be necessary in the western area of the district, in what was then known as the Frohnhausen-Ende . There was enormous construction activity in the district, which was booming at the time. Friedrich Krupp AG in particular had some settlements built here as part of the Krupp housing project, which expanded further and further west.

First Bible study in the Ev. The area belonging to the parish of Essen-Altendorf took place in a private apartment in the westernmost settlement of Breilsort and was then moved to a barrack built for this purpose on Thiesbürgerweg. During the First World War , the community bought the plot of land on which the current Herderschule primary school is located in 1917 with the aim of building a church there.

But the war claimed many victims. Most of the men in the ward were on the front lines, many of which never returned. Their wives, and sometimes also children, were often busy producing weapons in the Krupp cast steel factory . After the end of the war, more members of the community died as a result of the war, such as hunger or illness. The Krupp housing was temporarily stopped. All this let the plans of the church building fade into the background. Gradually, building activities found their way back into the district, including the late Pottgießerhof Krupp estate in 1935/36.

The time of National Socialism and the most severe destruction of the entire district during World War II , however, did not allow any further planning for a new community center. After the war, especially after the currency reform in 1948 , reconstruction began. In the 1950s, many buildings were built or rebuilt, including the Pottgießerhof, which was rebuilt in the mid-1950s. This also strengthened the planning of a community center in the west of Frohnhausen.

Construction of the community center

On October 12, 1957, the presbytery decided : A community center consisting of a church, community center, kindergarten and youth center was to be built on Postreitweg. Later they decided to use the name Markus Community Center .

The property purchased in 1917 was exchanged with the city of Essen. This is how today's Herderschule was built through the town on the property previously acquired for the church. The property to the west was now available for church construction. Some land was even acquired for the construction of the community center planned by the architects Wolfgang Müller-Zantop and Heinz Kalenborn. Ultimately, they had an area of 10,500 square meters on which the church building was arranged around a church square to the north, the free-standing church tower to the east, the youth center to the south and the current kindergarten and parish hall to the west. The youth center had an area of 13 by 21 meters and had, among other things, a bicycle cellar. The youth work was initially described by the presbytery as follows: "Bible study, common singing, games and sports and handicrafts alternate in a meaningful way in the youth hours."

The laying of the foundation stone for the church in what was then the seventh parish took place in October 1961 on the occasion of the harvest festival. The shell of the church, including the concrete tent roof, was already in place. The congregation filled the shell in order to witness the solemn walling of the foundation stone behind the altar, about which Pastor Helmut Wüsthoff gave the speech. Initially, church services were held in the adjacent Herderschule, the nearby Elisabeth School on Hamburger Straße and in the then Urania cinema on Frohnhauser Straße 422.

After the consecration of the bell on July 8, 1962 by Pastor Günter Knaak, the official inauguration of the entire Markus community center took place on November 4, 1962 in sunshine. The celebratory sermon was held by Oberkirchenrat Heinz Stöver. A commemorative publication was published. In the beginning the church was open daily for silent prayer. On January 1, 1963, the 7th parish of the large Essen-West parish became District 3 of the new Ev. Parish of Essen-Frohnhausen .

Today's community center

Church building

The square-plan church building, which has almost 500 seats, is covered by a concrete-cast, copper-covered tent roof that is clad with wood on the inside. Two copper-coated entrance doors open the way from the church square into an elongated, transverse entrance area, from which one can access the church interior via three further doors. The glass bricks of the wall in the entrance area were designed by the artist Ursula Graeff-Hirsch , as were the four triangular, nine-meter-high gable windows made of lead glass , which provide light in the interior between the windowless building cube and the tent roof resting on four corners .

A Schuke organ with two manuals , a pedal and nine stops has been part of the church's equipment since 1984 .

Church tower and bell

The 35 meter high, free-standing bell tower made of concrete is crowned by a twelve meter high, copper-clad steel cross. The three bells were cast by the Bochumer Verein , the smallest weighing 470 kilograms and the largest 938 kilograms. One of the three scriptures is written on each bell:

Holy, holy is the Lord of hosts
This is God's will to sanctify you
You are sanctified by the name of the Lord Jesus

Meetinghouse, family center and senior housing

These buildings line the church square in a south to west direction. The flat-roofed buildings of the kindergarten and community center, in the functional style of the construction period, border one another and are connected to one another on the inside.

The kindergarten had to open three groups in three rooms, each with 30 children. There were fixed opening times and only a few care hours. In 1995 the kindergarten became a day care center with all-day care . Until the neighboring schools introduced open all-day care, children up to 10 years of age could be accommodated here in the after-school care center. The facility has been a certified family center since 2007 . In the summer of 2012, it was given a new paint job together with the parish hall.

In 2000, the current senior citizens 'apartments on Postreitweg were moved into, under the management of the Evangelical Senior Citizens' Center Essen-Frohnhausen on Möserstraße. You are at the bell tower and south of the church square, where the former youth center was.