Samaritan Church (Berlin)

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Samaritan Church

The Samaritan Church in the Berlin district of Friedrichshain was built between May 7, 1892 and October 20, 1894 by the Evangelical Church Building Association based on a design by the architect Gotthilf Ludwig Möckel . It stands on the Samaritan place at the 1895 named after her Samariterstrasse at the junction with Bänschstraße and is adjacent to the consecrated on June 20, 1910 Galiläakirche in Riga street one of the two churches of the Evangelical Church of Galilee Samaritan. The church was last extensively restored between 1991 and 1994; it is a listed building together with the surrounding residential area. The Evangelical Church Community of Galilee-Samaritans, to which the church belongs, is part of the Berlin Stadtmitte church district .

history

Postcard from 1900, in the background the Samaritan Church
Berlin memorial plaque for Pastor Wilhelm Harnisch on the Samariterplatz house

The Samariterkirche is one of around 70 churches that the Evangelical Church Building Association built between 1890 and 1918, primarily in Germany. This initiative, emanating from Kaiser Wilhelm II , came about because of the increasing politicization of the German population at the time, which the monarchy saw as a “religious and moral emergency” that had to be fought. In addition to the political motives, however, demographic developments, in particular the strong growth in Berlin's population , were a major reason for the construction. When the foundation stone was laid, the nascent church was in the midst of allotment gardens, and only then did the rental houses in the area come into being.

During the time of National Socialism , the church was a center of the Pastors' Emergency League , from which the Confessing Church was formed in May 1934 . Pastor Wilhelm Harnisch - a Berlin memorial plaque next to the portal door reminds of his social and political work - set up a food service for the unemployed in the parish hall. After the end of the war, the Samariterkirche suffered numerous bullet holes, the windows were broken, and two floors of the parish hall at Samariterstraße 27 had to be cleared for refugees. Dead soldiers and civilians also lay in the streets in the Samaritan Quarter. Because of the risk of epidemics, Pastor Harnisch and local residents collected the corpses, initially hid them in the sacristy of the church, and with helpers he set up an emergency cemetery behind the church, as there were no burial facilities in Berlin. Harnisch became the cemetery commissioner for the Friedrichshain district. In 1978 the emergency cemetery was closed and later leveled and the playground for the community kindergarten was created on the site. In the course of the redesign, the remains of the war dead were exhumed and they then found their final resting place in a field of the state-owned cemetery in Hohenschönhausen at Ferdinand-Schulze-Strasse 115–125.

In the late GDR , the church under Rainer Eppelmann and Günter "Holly" Holwas was a center of the emerging peace movement and GDR opposition movement . It gained national and controversial notoriety, in particular through the politically highly explosive blues masses at the time (1979–1986) .

The parish of Galilee-Samaritans owns two grave fields of the former Galilee and Samaritan parishes in the east cemetery of Ahrensfelde .

Architecture and equipment

Möckel had designed a building ensemble in the style of the Brandenburg brick Gothic . The facade is adorned with ornate column gables, corner turrets and ornamentation made of glazed bricks as well as mosaics and sandstone figures. Above the tower portal is a statue of Christ in Savonian limestone , an early work by the sculptor Wilhelm Wandschneider .

The main nave is supported on the inside by a ribbed vault and has 1,100 seats for church visitors. A standing cross designed as a colored mosaic in front of the altar is also part of the equipment. The stained glass windows made between 1892 and 1894 based on designs by August Blunck were destroyed during the Second World War. In 1959, the choir received new, modern colored glass windows, designed by Inge Pape.

organ

The original organ of the Samariterkirche was the work of the master organ builder Wilhelm Sauer from 1894 (II + P, 27 stops ).

The current organ of the Samariterkirche was built by the company Alexander Schuke Potsdam Orgelbau .

I Hauptwerk C – g 3
1. Quintadena 16 ′
2. Principal 08th'
3. Reed flute 08th'
4th octave 04 ′
5. Night horn 04 ′
6th octave 02 ′
7th Mixture V
8th. Cymbel III
9. Trumpet 08th'
II Swell C – g 3
10. Dumped 08th'
11. Principal 04 ′
12. Quintadena 04 ′
13. Nassat 02 2 ⁄ 3  ′
14th recorder 02 ′
15th third 01 3 ⁄ 5  ′
16. Sif flute 01'
17th Scharff III – IV
18th Rankett 16 ′
19th Krummhorn 08th'
Tremulant
Pedal C – f 1
20th Sub bass 16 ′
21st octave 08th'
22nd Bass flute 08th'
23. octave 04 ′
24. Mixture V
25th trombone 16 ′
26th Trumpet 08th'

Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P

Bells

The 60 meter high church tower houses a bell chamber with a square floor plan (sides 4.66 m inside). There are three cast steel bells that were cast by the Bochum Association . The following information can be found in an inventory list of the foundry: The three-part bell including clapper, bearings, axes and bell lever cost 3,122 marks to manufacture  .

Bell plan
size Chime Weight
(kg)		 lower
diameter
(mm)		 Height
(mm)
greatest e 1095 1385 1225
middle g sharp 0624 1125 1005
smallest H 0340 0940 0340

literature

  • Angela Beeskow: The Samaritan Church in Berlin-Friedrichshain. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1998.
  • Angela Beeskow: The furnishings in the churches of the Berlin Church Building Association (1890–1904). Gebr. Mann Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 978-3-7861-1765-0 .
  • Jan Feustel: Tower crosses over rear buildings: Churches in the Berlin-Friedrichshain district. Zwei-Zwerge-Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-9804114-7-8 .
  • Berlin. Sacred places. Grebennikow Verlag, Berlin 2010, pp. 116–117, ISBN 978-3-941784-09-3 .

Web links

Commons : Samariterkirche (Berlin)  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Monument Ev. Samariterkirche am Samariterplatz, 1892-1894 by Gotthilf Ludwig Möckel ,Monument ensemble Bänschstraße 25, 29, 32–55, 57–74, tenement houses and streets with central promenade; Proskauer Straße 17a, Samariterplatz, Samariterstraße 14/15, 28, Voigtstraße 32, 33
  2. ↑ Event for the 50th anniversary of the redesign
  3. ↑ Entry in Sauer's catalog raisonné
  4. ↑ City Archives Frankfurt (Oder) / Ostmarkbauten. Retrieved August 16, 2018 .
  5. ↑ 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.

Coordinates: 52 ° 31 '4.8 "  N , 13 ° 27" 59.3 "  E