Mennonite Church Elblag
The Mennonite Church Elbing was in 1590 in the style of Dutch Mannerism as a multi-storey gabled house in Elblag built Old Town. Until 1900 it functioned as the church and parish hall of the Elbingen Mennonites .
history
Dutch Anabaptists settled in Elbing and the surrounding area as early as the first half of the 16th century . The city itself had previously suffered greatly from the effects of the equestrian war between Poland and the Teutonic Order and was accordingly keen to attract new colonists. But as early as 1550 the city council announced a royal decree according to which the Anabaptists were to leave the city within 14 days. Six years later, the Polish King Sigismund II August once again ordered the expulsion of the Anabaptists from the city. Nevertheless, most of the Anabaptists / Mennonites were tolerated at least in the area around the city. After 1565, the Mennonites played a special role in the cultivation of the Ellerwald forest outside the city walls.
In 1585, Jost von Kampen and Hans von Köln, the first two Mennonites, were formally granted citizenship in Elbląg. Both established the silk trade , which was previously unknown in the city . Other Mennonite families came later. For the exemption from military service, the pacifist Mennonites paid an appropriate protection fee in Polish guilders . On the Jost von Kampens property at Kurzen Hinterstrasse 8 (later Wilhelmsstrasse), the building that still exists today was built as a Mennonite church in 1590. The building remained a meeting place for the Elbingen Mennonites until 1900. A second church in Ellerwald I. Trift (today Władysławowo ) was consecrated on October 5, 1783 for the Mennonites who continued to settle in Ellerwald outside the old town . However, both groups formed a common Elbing-Ellerwald community. The parish has kept church records since 1825 . In 1920 the congregation consisted of over 500 baptized members.
In the middle of the 19th century, after internal conflicts, a second parish was established, which was able to inaugurate a church on Reiferbahnstrasse in August 1852. Both communities existed until the flight from the Red Army in January 1945.
building
The church building dates from 1590 and was built as a multi-storey gabled house in the Dutch Mannerism style. The building is a typical example of the practice of hidden churches (Dutch Schuilkerk ). Since Mennonite churches were not allowed to be recognizable as church buildings in many territories until the 18th century, they were designed outwardly as residential houses or barns. Another example of such hidden churches is the Singelkerk in Amsterdam.
The Elbingen Mennonite Church is the world's second oldest still existing Mennonite church building (the oldest Mennonite church is in Pingjum in the province of Friesland , Netherlands , built in 1575). Today the building is one of the oldest houses in Elblag. It has been extensively renovated in recent years and is now an art gallery . A memorial plaque on the front of the house in Polish, German, Dutch and English reminds of the history of the Mennonite church.
After it was later also possible for Mennonites to build churches that were also recognizable as such from the outside, a new, larger church was consecrated in 1900 at Berlinerstrasse 20, which was used as a meeting place for the Elbingen Mennonites until they flew from the Red Army in 1945 has been. Today the church building, which has meanwhile been named the Church of the Good Shepherd , is home to a congregation of the Polish Catholic Church .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Horst Penner: Worldwide Brotherhood, a Mennonite history book . Ed .: Horst Gerlach. 6th edition. Gerlach, Kirchheimbolanden 2010, ISBN 978-3-926306-62-3 , p. 80 ff .
- ↑ Elbag - (Elbing) - Oldest Building Used for Mennonite Church. Mennonite Historical Society of Saskatchewan, accessed September 25, 2012 .
Coordinates: 54 ° 9 ′ 36.9 ″ N , 19 ° 23 ′ 49.8 ″ E