Schifferkirche (Arnis)

Schifferkirche Arnis from the south

The Schifferkirche is a church building of the Evangelical Lutheran parish Arnis-Rabenkirchen in Arnis in the Schleswig-Flensburg district in Schleswig-Holstein . The name "Schifferkirche", which is used today, refers to the fact that since the 18th century Arnisser Schiffer donated votive ships, ship models, to the church as thanks for a rescue from distress at sea.

history

Grave slab of the Kemmeter family near the Schifferkirche in Arnis, 18th century

After Duke Christian Albrecht allowed the Kappeln families, who had fled serfdom, to settle on the Arnis peninsula in 1667, the new settlers began building a church at the southwest end of the town's only street in 1669. The church is on a hill, presumably an old fortification to secure the Schlei -Enge. A cemetery was laid out around the church and some old tombstones have been preserved.

Originally the whole church was to be built from brick from the Swedish island of Gotland , but since the ship that transported the stones went down, it was decided to build a half-timbered building. All over the Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf was collected for the new church, so that the construction could be completed in 1673 despite the loss of the building material.

north half-timbered side with gravestone from the 18th century

In 1733 the walls were rebuilt with brick, only on the north side the original half-timbering was preserved. The tower, which replaced a wooden bell tower, and the south porch were added in 1825.

Interior of the Schifferkirche Arnis

Conversions

In 1842 the church was rebuilt. The choir grille was removed and the east gallery in the chancel, on which the organ is located in the classicist case, was drawn in. The carved altar, which had been bequeathed to the church in 1708 and was originally in the church in Boren , was removed for this purpose. Today it is in Gottorf Castle . The new, simple altar received an oil painting that has not been preserved.

In the 1950s the church was renovated. A sacristy box from the time it was built was removed and the pulpit moved to its current location. The last renovation took place in 1999.

Furnishing

In the flat-roofed baroque hall church, the first thing you notice are the votive ships from the 18th and 19th centuries hanging from the ceiling . They are supposed to be thank you gifts from ship owners rescued from distress at sea and were donated by shipowners and ship owners in some churches along the Baltic Sea coast, including in St. Petri in Wolgast . The most magnificent ship in Arnis, the “Privilegia”, was stolen from the church in 1971. It was later replaced by the "Santa Cruz". The originally oldest votive ship (18th century) in the church, the "Ansul Arnis" is now an exhibit in the Schleswig State Museum.

Votive ship in the Schifferkirche at Arnis

The wooden baptismal font and stalls date from the time it was built, as is the triumphal cross , which was originally located on the choir grille and was moved to the north wall during the renovation in 1842. Due to its size, it is believed that it was previously in another church.

The altar is adorned with a relief from 1936 depicting the calming down of the storm . The painting, which was put on the altar in 1842, a Descent from the Cross by Theodor Rehbenitz , has been lost.

The painting “The Last Judgment” from 1742 hangs on the north wall towards the Knechteboden, donated by Zacharias Kemmeter († 1753), whose tombstone is located south of the church. The picture is a rather simple copy after the very large Last Judgment by Peter Paul Rubens .

pulpit

The pulpit is the oldest inventory . According to the Low German inscription, Margareta Sniders gave 10 thalers to build it in 1573. The pulpit is a century older than the church itself.

In Arnis it was said for a long time that it came from one of the churches on the island of Strand , which went down in the Burchardi flood in 1634 . According to tradition, an Arniss fisherman is said to have fished them up and brought them to his hometown. Since there were no fishermen in Arnis in the 17th century, especially not on the North Sea, and since a wooden pulpit would not last for decades in salt water, this fable has no real content. More recent art-historical comparisons, however, come to the conclusion that the pulpit comes with a high degree of probability from the eastern part of what was then the Duchy of Schleswig. There are similarities in structure with other pulpits in churches on the Baltic coast. The sheet masks at the bottom of the body indicate the knowledge of the work of Cornelis Floris , who made the cenotaph for the Danish King Friedrich I in Schleswig Cathedral in 1552 . In addition, there is an astonishing similarity in the representation of Mary as Queen with the corresponding part on the baptismal font in the church in Borby near Eckernförde.

baptism
Pulpit (armed man and Maria)
Pulpit (Mary with child and Adam and Eve)
Pulpit (Adam and Eve and two men)

The reliefs of the pulpit show, from left to right, a man with a sword, a crowned woman with a child (Mary with the baby Jesus), Adam and Eve, and two men in the costumes of the 16th century. The sound cover was probably only made when the pulpit was installed in the Arniss church. The jewelry with fan rosettes is striking . The pulpit, sound cover and baptismal font were given their current color scheme in 1958.

The erection of the cross, donated in 1693.

Erecting the cross

Next to the pulpit, the oil painting The Raising of the Cross is the most important work of art. It was donated in 1693 by Andreas Odefeyd, a resident of the island of Arnis at the time. Odefeyd was probably the first new settler to move back to the island after the great crisis as a result of the Swedish-Brandenburg War , lured by a 10-year tax exemption that the Duke announced at the time. The picture is the only remaining item from the possession of an Arnisser from the time it was founded. Like other pictures in Augsburg or Antwerp , the painting goes back to the picture of the same name by Christoph Schwartz , which hangs today in the Lenbach House in Munich.

Well-known preachers

The most famous preacher of the Schifferkirche was Georg Jakob Adler, the father of the later general superintendent Jacob Georg Christian Adler , who was pastor in Arnis from 1755–58 before he became provost in Altona. Today the church, like the medieval St. Mary's Church in Rabenkirchen, belongs to the parish of Arnis-Rabenkirchen.

Naming

The name "Schifferkirche", which is used today, is more recent. In Christopher Scharf's 1838 chronicle of what was then Arnis, which is still important today, the author, the sexton at the time, uses the simple term "Church of Arnis". Scharf also called the western gallery from 1765, now known as “Knechteboden”, “Kapboden”.

graveyard

For the cemetery, the settlers chose a higher part of what was then the island, which until the 19th century was only connected to the rest of the island via marshy meadows. The area was given to the settlers in 1667 under the "Arnisser Privilege" as community property. The church stands in the middle, the cemetery is surrounded by a linden wreath. An avenue of lime trees leads to the church. The entire facility is under monument protection.

Family graves arose from the original transfer to property, which were mostly surrounded by hedges, were maintained by the families and were also bequeathed. It was not until the second half of the 20th century that today's cemetery regulations were drawn up, according to which the site is owned by the church and each family has to lease a burial site for a fee. This, together with the ever decreasing number of burials, led to graves being abandoned and hedges removed. Larger parts of the cemetery became a lawn. A church building association Arnis-Rabenkirchen is working against this development, which wants to maintain the current condition and restore parts of the old cemetery complex in the future.

"Talking Stones"

As a first project, the church building association initiated a history project in the cemetery in 2018 as part of the European cultural heritage year, the “talking stones”. So far, the story of the family buried there can be heard via mobile phone via 10 QR codes in addition to gravestones . More stones are planned. The location of the graves can be viewed online on a map.

literature

Hartmut Beseler: Art Topography Schleswig-Holstein. Neumünster 1974, p. 657f
Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments . Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein. 3rd revised and updated edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-422-03120-3 , pp. 165f.
Nicolaus Schmidt : The Schifferkirche - a building with a symbolic character. In: Nicolaus Schmidt: Arnis. 1667 2017. The smallest city in Germany. Wachholtz-Verlag, 2017, pp. 62–81.