Nathanael Church (Berlin)
The under monument protection standing Nathanael Church is located at Grazer Platz in Berlin district of Schoeneberg in Tempelhof-Schöneberg . The church , a brick building , the shape of which is pronounced in the north German, neo-Gothic style , was built according to a design by Jürgen Kröger . The Crown Prince of the German Empire , Wilhelm of Prussia , attended the inauguration on October 31, 1903 . At the same time the Nathanael congregation became independent and out of the parish of Schöneberg.
history
Prehistory; a first church becomes necessary
Benefiting from the planned development of a building association and a non-profit organization, the nearby Friedenau country house colony grew to over 2,000 inhabitants by 1885, compared with 43,000 in 1919. Friedenau belonged to the parish of the Friedrichswerder Church , which in 1894 had over 100,000 members. In order to remedy the lack of adequate ecclesiastical pastoral care, a daughter congregation was founded in the same year, for which, with the support of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the “Kaiserkirche”, today's Apostle Paulus Church , was built with 1500 seats.
The curate from the Alt-Schöneberg parish, who received the order from the Berlin consistory to gather a new congregation in Friedenau around him, was able to prepare rooms in a shop apartment on Cranachstrasse in which the first service was held on March 31, 1899. Soon the rooms on Cranachstrasse were no longer sufficient. When selling their fields in the Friedenau district, the Parish Alt-Schöneberg reserved a building site for a future church.
A second church is built
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The Berlin city synod approved a total of 250,000 marks in installments from 1901 (today: around 1.7 million euros after adjusting for purchasing power) for the construction of another church. Empress Auguste Viktoria played a key role in the development of the Nathanael Church , and she assumed the patronage of the Berlin Evangelical Church Building Association, founded on May 2, 1890 to promote church building and the establishment of congregations . She had also assumed the rights and duties of patronage at this church because the 7,000 parishioners in the Friedenau country house colony needed a church. Your chief steward Ernst von Mirbach was a member of the building commission. The architect Jürgen Kröger, from whose architectural office many designs for churches in the Brandenburg brick Gothic style with Romanesque or Gothic styles emerged, received the first prize for his design Centralbau after a tender. These plans have been implemented.
The church is dedicated to Nathanael , a disciple of Jesus Christ who is often equated with the apostle Bartholomew . He is said to symbolize the path from believing Judaism to faith in Jesus. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on May 22nd, 1902 . The topping-out ceremony was celebrated in November 1902 . The church had seats for 1,050 believers, although at that time it was still on the edge of the settlement area. But there was hope that many apartments will be built around the church. As early as 1925, the parish had 28,000 members who were looked after by three pastors.
In July 1903 the three cast steel bells cast by the Bochum Association were raised and installed in the bell room. Their production - including clapper, axles, bearings and bell lever - cost 5308 marks .
| Bell jar | Chime | Weight (kg) |
Diameter ( mm) |
Height (mm) |
inscription |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | c 1 | 1953 | 1673 | 130 | THE JOY OF THIS CITY MEANS, PEACE IS ON IT FIRST !. |
| 2. | it 1 | 1285 | 1430 | 125 | TO UNION, TO CHARMING ASSOCIATIONS, MEET THE LOVING COMMUNITY! ONE LORD, ONE FAITH, ONE BAPTISM, ONE GOD AND FATHER OF OUR ALL. EPHESIANS 4.5 |
| 3. | ges 1 | 829 | 1260 | 109 | ROLLING UP EVEN MORE DELICIOUS SEEDS, WE SHOT IN MISSING INTO THE EARTH, AND HOPE THAT IT SHOULD BLOOM OUT OF THE COFFINES, TO A BEAUTIFUL GOES. I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE. EV. JOH. 11.25 |
They were not melted down for the production of projectiles in either of the two world wars.
During air raids by the Allies, incendiary bombs destroyed the roof over the nave on February 15, 1944, and the spire on March 20, 1944. Falling debris extinguished the fire inside the church. The church looked battered from the outside, but the interior was relatively well preserved. Only after the end of the war were the pews, the wooden floor, the ceiling beams and rafters stolen from the interior of the church, as was any metal that could still be recycled. Because reconstruction of the church was initially out of the question in the post-war situation, the also damaged parish hall was repaired so that church services could be celebrated there. The church hall was consecrated on April 12, 1950. At the end of January 1954, the reconstruction of the church began: first the nave and the annexes on the right side of the choir were restored. In the summer of 1954, the tower's outer facade was restored. Because of the steadily increasing air traffic, new regulations applied to the height of church towers in Berlin, so that the tower did not regain its old shape and height. In 1955 the interior of the church was renovated and refurbished. The tower clock could also be renovated. A total of around 460,000 marks (today: around 1,175,000 euros) were spent on the reconstruction. The rededication of the Nathanael Church, which now has 700 seats, took place on October 23, 1955.
building
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The building commission decided to design a red brick church in the Gothic style for the Nathanael Church. It thus corresponded to the recommendations of the Eisenach regulation passed in 1861 , which obliged the communities to adhere to the Romanesque or Gothic style, which were considered to bear old German and patriotic sentiments, for the sake of the dignity of church building. The church was oriented to the east towards Jerusalem, as it was in accordance with the historical tradition of the early Christian basilica . The central building is a longitudinal building with a wide single-nave nave , short high-gabled transept and polygonal choir . The roof over the crossing was crowned by a pointed, towering roof turret. The masonry is covered with light red bricks and individual green glaze stones, the base with brown-red clinker bricks . The wall surfaces are loosened up by plaster panels. The gables of the transept have wide pointed arch windows . The choir has extensions in the manner of a chapel wreath , which among other things accommodate the sacristy .
The west front of the transverse rectangular tower, flanked by extensions of the staircases and the galleries , one is Portal upstream whose gable battlements crowned and bears at the top of a cross. The arch field above the entrance portal was originally decorated with a colorful painting of Christ. An eight-sided, pointed helmet rose above the large sound openings of the bell storey with a triangular gable , which was pierced by pointed arched openings halfway up.
After the severe destruction of the Second World War , the building was restored in a somewhat simplified form. The tower now has a simple hipped roof over the bell storey . The roof turret over the crossing was not restored. The tower height is now given as 38 meters.
Interior
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The interior has a three-sided gallery . All three color windows of the choir were designed by Fritz Geiges . The design of his glass paintings followed the style of the 15th and 16th centuries. The topics he discussed are no longer known. Most of the walls inside the church, especially the choir, were painted in bright colors. Nothing is left of the original equipment.
The parish council decided that the interior of the church should be made simple and bright during the renovation. The windows should bring more light into the church interior than before the destruction. The designs for the two large windows on the long side in the nave and the three windows in the chancel and the sgraffito in the apse from 1957 come from Florian Breuer. Florian Breuer also designed six other windows in the church: five in the chapel behind the chancel and one in the sacristy.
Until 1944, the Nathanael community had a sour - organ with two manuals . The new Schuke organ was inaugurated on November 30, 1958 . It has a mechanical play contracture and an electric key action . In 1989 the organ was overhauled and provided with an additional register. It now has 32 registers on three manuals and a pedal .
literature
- Architects and Engineers Association of Berlin: Berlin and its buildings. Part VI. Sacred buildings. Berlin 1997.
- Annette Wigger: Festschrift for the 100th anniversary of the Nathanael Church in Schönenerg-Friedenau. Berlin 2003.
- Günther Kühne, Elisabeth Stephani: Evangelical churches in Berlin. Berlin 1978.
- Klaus-Dieter Wille: The bells of Berlin (West). History and inventory. Berlin 1987.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Compilation of the bells delivered to Berlin and the surrounding area ; Bochum Association, around 1900. In the archive of the Köpenick Church of St. Josef, viewed on August 6, 2019.
- ↑ Detailed information on the organ
Coordinates: 52 ° 28 '2 " N , 13 ° 20' 42.9" E