St. Gertrude Church (Darłowo)
The St. Gertrud Church ( Polish Kościół św. Gertrudy ) in Darłowo ( German Rügenwalde ) is a late Gothic central building with a tent roof and one of four polygonal Pomeranian church buildings. The one in a cemetery (until 1945 cemetery on Kopfberg ) in the northeast of the urban area at ulica św. Gertrudy (until 1945 Gertrudstraße ) not far from the arterial road to Ustka dates from the beginning of the 15th century, was a Protestant church until 1945 and is now a Catholic parish church.
history
The St. Gertrud Hospitals appeared in Pomerania towards the end of the 14th century, of which around 35 are known. One of them was the building erected in 1406 in what was then Rügenwalde, which was used to care for the poor, the sick and travelers - in the spirit of the benefactress Gertrud von Nivelles († 659) in Brabant , the patroness of the building that was later used as a church.
The oldest documented mention of the church can be found in a poem by the great Storme in Pomerania in 1497: Dat drüdde Schiff quam ever den Scherlacken up dei Hauven to St. Gertrud . Then the name appeared again in a register of Duke Barnim XI. (1501–1573) conducted church visitation in 1539 in Rügenwalde, and only then again in 1620 occasionally a question of salary for the 3rd clergyman of the Rügenwalder Marienkirche , who served at the St. Gertrud Church.
In the course of the 17th and 18th centuries, the trades, guilds and authorities who were given permanent seats in the church and, in addition to the stalls, also had to keep the adjacent windows in good condition, increasingly contributed to the financing of the church. There was a magistrate choir with 24 seats, choir stalls for carpenters, drapers and tailors.
A general renovation took place in 1912 according to the plans of Professor Sackur from Danzig , with Professor Max Kutschmann in Berlin taking over the painting . At that time old paintings were found everywhere, but it was decided to only expose part of the left side of the east door.
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From the Reformation to 1945 the church was used for church services by the evangelical community. After the Rügenwalder Church , which was also Protestant until 1945, was taken over by the Roman Catholic Church in Poland , the St. Gertrud Church was left to the Germans who remained in the city, where they could hold services until they were finally expelled . In the following period the church was not used as a cemetery chapel from 1961 to 1990, and today it is the parish church of the Parafia św, which was built on July 26, 1990. Gertrudy w Darłowie (Parish of St. Gertrud in Darłowo). On August 10, 1997 she was consecrated for this purpose.
Until the end of the Second World War , the St. Gertrud Church belonged to the Marienkirche community in Rügenwalde and thus to the Protestant parish of Rügenwalde in the church province of Pomerania of the Church of the Old Prussian Union . Today's parish in Darłowo is part of the Catholic deanery Darłowo in the diocese of Koszalin-Kołobrzeg (Köslin-Kolberg) of the Catholic Church in Poland .
architecture
The St. Gertrud Church is a polygonal church , of which there are three more in Pomerania: the twelve-sided Gertrudenkapelle in Wolgast , the octagonal Gertraudenkapelle in Koszalin (Köslin) and the St. George's Chapel in Słupsk (Stolp) .
In the middle of the church there is a hexagonal higher main room, to which the side rooms are assigned as a walkway. The main room is formed by six octagonal pipes with fine corner profiles, which are connected by simple pointed arches.
From May 26th to August 30th, 1860, the church was completely whitewashed inside. On this occasion the colored painting disappeared, including a painting of St. Gertrude.
The church has three galleries (“choirs”): the free, the organ and the shoemaker's choir. The Freichor was renewed in 1764. The wall paintings of the shoemaker's choir were covered up until 1912, some could be exposed again.
One of the noteworthy items of equipment until 1945 was the altar , which showed a portrayal of Jesus' Last Supper framed by columns . It is not known when the altar was built, but it appeared to have been part of a much larger altar. The altar was changed after 1945, only the two columns can still be seen.
In connection with the renovation in 1860, the shipowner Kommerzienrat Eduard August Hemptenmacher donated an organ to the church , which was built by the organ building workshop Johann-Friedrich-Schulze -Söhne in Paulinzella ( Thuringia ).
The pulpit was one of the highlights of baroque wooden architecture of the 17th century. It came from the castle church in Rügenwalde, which was shut down in 1805. The pulpit, to which an ornate staircase led, was carried by an angel figure. In the upper part, Moses , David , Daniel , Elijah and Elisha were represented in five fields . The symbols of the four evangelists (human / Matthew, lion / Mark, bull / Luke and eagle / John) could be seen between the pictures . There were also portraits of the ducal court on the pulpit and pulpit stairs. The coat of arms of Pomerania was attached to a column between the pulpit and the sound cover . The pulpit is no longer in the church today.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hellmuth Heyden , Church History of Pomerania , 2 volumes, Cologne-Braunsberg 1957, here Volume 1, p. 173.
- ↑ quoted from: Karl Rosenow , Die Gertrudkirche in Rügenwalde , in: Der Kreis Schlawe. A Pomeranian Heimatbuch , Volume 2: The cities and rural communities , ed. by Manfred Vollack , Husum 1989, pp. 718-724, here p. 719.
- ↑ Rita Scheller, Pommersche Gertraudenkapellen , in: Pommersche Heimatkirche , supplement for Die Pommersche Zeitung V / 2013, volume 63, p. 15.
- ↑ Karl Rosenow (as above), pp. 720–721.
Coordinates: 54 ° 25 ′ 28.7 ″ N , 16 ° 24 ′ 55.9 ″ E