St. Petri Church (Bad Bodenteich)
The St. Petri Church is the Evangelical Lutheran church in Bad Bodenteich in the parish of Uelzen of the regional church of Hanover .
Origin of the church
The Petrus patronage indicates an origin from the Frankish Saxon mission under Charlemagne. In 1323 the ekklesia was first mentioned in Bodendike . Until then, the knight family of the "von Bodendik" had the church patronage, from 1323 to 1871 the respective sovereign and owner of the castle. A pastor named Heiso is mentioned for the first time in 1323. In 1531 Ernst the Confessor sent Hermann Sonnemann, the first Protestant pastor, here.
Tower and bells
The church, especially its wooden bell tower, was damaged or completely destroyed by fires several times: in 1373 in the War of the Lüneburg Succession , in 1519 in the Hildesheim collegiate feud , in 1640 in the Thirty Years War and in 1808 in the great Bodenteich fire. After this devastating fire, a wooden bell tower was built again in 1817. In 1894, today's landmark of the area was created. The bell tower measures eight meters at the foundations and reaches a height of 52 meters. It was designed by the architect Werner Söchtig from Hildesheim. After storm damage, it received a new crown with a pommel and cross in 1970.
The old cross is in the church today. Until 1975, the tower onions were covered with copper instead of the previous slate. In the tower hang three bells with the tone sequence d'-e'-g '. The sound of the Guelph bell, cast in 1874 by the Radler bell foundry in Hildesheim, has the striking note e '. It is the only bronze bell in town. Their inscription reads: COME FOR IT'S ALL READY! The two steel bells were cast by the Bochum Association in 1955 and 1956. They bear the inscriptions: JESUS CHRIST HAS TAKEN THE POWER OF DEATH and GIVES US MERCY PEACE - LORD GOD IN OUR TIMES. The tower clock from the company Weule in Bockenem am Harz dates from 1895. During the First World War, the clock bells were also delivered and replaced by cast steel bells.
Construction of today's church
The old St. Petri Church, badly damaged in the great fire of 1808, was demolished in 1833. By 1836, today's building was built in the classicist style according to the design of the royal British-Hanover consistorial builder Hellner with a base made of hewn field stones, brick masonry and sandstone components. It is 29 m long and 18 m wide; the side walls are almost 9 m high, the gable walls almost 17 m high. The arched windows, the coffered barrel vault, the 22 wooden columns with Doric capitals under the galleries and ceilings, the two sandstone columns with Ionic capitals in the choir window and the four wooden columns with Corinthian capitals on the altar wall, as well as the sandstone pillars and half pillars in the east and western part of the church, but not all of them have capitals. Today's St. Petri Church was consecrated on November 6, 1836.
inner space
The interior of the church with its originally 960 seats has the shape of a three-aisled hall church with flat ceilings at a height of almost 9 m and a 12 m high barrel vault over the central nave, the narrow pulpit gallery and the large organ gallery, under which two gallery stairs lead upwards. The altar wall, decorated with relief ornaments, has two round-arched passages to a gallery and pulpit stairs on the north side and a sacristy on the south side. Originally the walls and ceilings were whitewashed. Only the pulpit, the altar wall and the organ were partially gilded. All wooden parts were evenly painted gray-blue. The windows were all simply glazed, the large choir window in the east gable was screened off with fabric draperies.
organ
The old organ from 1700 had a manual, pedal and 19 sounding stops . It was built by Conrad Euler from Wahmbeck an der Oberweser and had to be sold to Ohrdorf by the church council in 1831/32 because of the new church building. In the meantime it has also been replaced there by a new organ. The organ case, which is under monument protection, dates back to the construction period of the church (1833–1836). The instrument itself was expanded and rebuilt several times. In 1996 a completely new organ from the Hillebrand company from Altwarmbüchen was built behind the old prospectus . This mechanical organ consists of 1718 pipes and has 27 registers with two manuals and a pedal. It was inaugurated on November 3, 1996.
Baptismal font & candlestick
The goblet-shaped baptismal font, modeled from sandstone, also dates from 1836. As an ornament, it bears eight carved gilded palm branches. Around the circular recess for the use of a silver baptismal bowl, four Bible passages adorn the upper edge: Matth. 28, V.19 (baptism command), Marc. 16, V.16 (salvation), Joh.3, V.5 (new birth ), Marc. 10, v.14 (Gospel of Children). The wrought iron chandelier next to the font was erected in 1975. Just like a second identical chandelier, it was forged by a church mayor of the Bodenteich partner congregation Conradsdorf in Saxony.
Painting
The interior of the church was redesigned in color in 1912 by Wilhelm Sievers , Hanover, painter for medieval church painting. At that time the barrel vault received its "starry sky", organ prospectus, galleries, capitals and cornices were decorated with ornaments and gilded. Three words from the Bible were placed on the gallery, on the south side: “SO GOD LOVED THE WORLD; THAT HE GIVED HIS NATIVE SON. Joh 3,16 “, on the north side:„ BUT BE DOING THE WORD AND DO NOT LISTENER ALONE; BY YOU CHEATING YOURSELF: Jak 1,22 ”, at the organ loft:“ PRAISE THE LORD, MY SOUL, AND DON'T FORGET WHAT HE HAS DONE GOOD FOR YOU. Ps 103,2 ".
Stained glass
Also in 1929, Fritz Lauterbach, painter for church and secular glass painting in Hanover, created a depiction of the adoration of the shepherds at the manger for the center section of the choir window and two depictions of the vine and its vines for the quarter-circle side parts of the window.
On March 25, 1945, an ammunition train exploded at the Bodenteich train station. 61 dead were identified, others were buried in a communal grave. Windows in St. Peter's Church were also destroyed. The Schneider glass manufacture from Glinde near Hamburg added ornamental, colored panes to the destroyed parts in 1976/77, the Christmas window remains half: It still says “Glory to God in the heights”, the “and peace on earth” has not been restored.
Crucifix and altar candlesticks
For the 100th anniversary of St. Petri Church in Bodenteich in November 1936, the sculptor Wilhelm Groß from Oranienburg near Berlin carved an 88 cm high Christ and a panel with the heading INRI from natural birch wood for the altar cross. At the same time, two 42 cm high silver altar candlesticks with shafts made of dark oak were made in Eva Dittrich's workshop in Hildesheim. Two words from the Bible are engraved in the feet of these candlesticks: "THE LORD IS MY LIGHT AND MY SALVATION" and "THE LIGHT SHINES IN THE DARK". These two altar candlesticks were supplemented in 1951 by two similar in shape but only 36 cm high and predominantly made of copper by Rudolf Koolmann in Lübeck.
Remodeling
The lower pulpit in the chancel, through which the preacher is brought closer to the congregation, also dates from the anniversary year 1936. Since then, the upper pulpit on the “high choir” has only been used on special festive days when the gallery benches are full. During the interior renovation in 1976/77, the floor of the Bützflether church was given brick parquet. The sandstone slabs in the chancel were lowered one step. New, shorter benches in the central nave replace the long, continuous benches. The aisles, however, received chairs. The number of seats was reduced to around 600, but the church interior was restructured. The church also received a new paint job, which was changed to the current color in 2011. In addition, the benches were painted in the color of the columns. In 1964 the church got a brass chandelier and in 1976/77 lights on the pillars to replace the two chandeliers delivered during World War II.
sacristy
The sacristy and the back of the altar were repainted in 2004 and refurbished. At that time the windows to the church next to the altar were also colorfully glazed.
Web links
- Homepage of the parish Bodenteich
- St. Petri parish on the pages of the church district Uelzen
- Information about the parish Bodenteich in the parish dictionary.
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 52 ° 49 ′ 57 ″ N , 10 ° 40 ′ 52 ″ E