Melanchthon Church (Insterburg)

The Melanchthon Church in Insterburg was next to the Luther Church , the actual city church, the second Protestant church in the East Prussian district town, which has been called Chernyakhovsk in Russian since 1946 . The church was built between 1909 and 1911 in neo-Gothic style and destroyed in World War II. Their ruins were converted into a factory hall . The Melanchthon Church stood in the west of the city on what was then Ziegelstrasse, now Uliza Pobjeda, and can be seen as a factory hall.

building

The construction of the Melanchthon Church began in 1909. The design for the brick building in neo-Gothic style came from the architect Raabe, who was head of the state building construction office in Insterburg with the rank of government master builder. The church was inaugurated on June 27, 1911.

The church interior with its 800 seats was ogival arched and two galleries flanked. The very slender 50 meter high tower was covered with copper sheeting.

The pulpit altar and the baptism were made of wood, and the choir room had two colored windows. The church's furnishings came from the community.

The church had an organ and three bells. In 1928 the church was repainted.

The church was destroyed during World War II. Their ruin was then expanded into a factory hall for nail and wire mesh production. In the 1990s the building stood idle for a long time. Then the site was taken over by a transport company. A stonemason works in the former nave .

The ruins of the Melanchthon Church are on the list of protected objects of the city of Chernyakhovsk.

local community

The Melanchthon Church was a branch church of the Insterburger Luther Church. Before 1945, four clergymen worked in the parish, supported by an additional pastor for the Insterburg prison. In the 1930s the community had more than 40,000 members, most of whom lived in the city of Insterburg, but many also lived in the towns of the Insterburg-Land parish .

With the Luther Church, the Melanchthon Church belonged to the church district Insterburg in the church province of East Prussia of the Church of the Old Prussian Union until 1945 .

After the flight and expulsion of the local population, Protestant church life in Insterburg broke off.

It was not until the 1990s that a new Evangelical Lutheran congregation was formed with a parish office for the newly formed church region of Chernyakhovsk with congregations in more than twenty places in the central Kaliningrad region. It is incorporated into the Kaliningrad provost of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of European Russia .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Walther Hubatsch : History of the Protestant Church in East Prussia. Volume II: Pictures of East Prussian Churches. Göttingen 1968, p. 102.
2. ↑ Handbook on the royal Prussian court and state for the year 1910. P. 250 (list of Prussian building officials ).
3. ↑ ostpreussen.net
4. ↑ Evangelical Lutheran Provosty Kaliningrad ( Memento of the original dated August 29, 2011 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. (German Russian) 

literature

• Gustav Fedtke: The Luther Church in Insterburg. Insterburg 1913.

Coordinates: 54 ° 38 ′ 1.1 ″  N , 21 ° 48 ′ 7.3 ″  E