St. Simeon Church (Berlin)
The St. Simeon Church in the church district of Berlin Stadtmitte is a neo-Gothic brick church built into the closed street front in the Wassertorstraße in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg . It was built from 1893 to 1897 based on designs by the Royal Building Councilor Franz Schwechten . The church was consecrated on December 8, 1897. The church in historicized Gothic style is a listed building . It has been Germany's first refugee church since 2015 .
history
Until the union with St. Jacobi and the Melanchthongemeinde to form the Evangelical Church Congregation in Kreuzberg-Mitte in 2013, the Church Community of St. Simeon was a community in the parish of Berlin Stadtmitte des Sprengels Berlin in the Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia . It goes back to the St. Petri parish in Cölln , Berlin's sister city. A municipality in the Cöllnische Vorstadt was separated from this in 1694, which has been called Luisenstadt -gemeinde since 1802 . The Neue-Luisenstadt-Gemeinde (St. Jacobi-Congregation was only later called) branched off from this in 1845 for the 13,000 members who lived on the Köpenicker Feld expansion . After the membership of the St. Jacobi Congregation had grown to over 60,000 in 1868, the St. Simeon Congregation split off. An initial plan to build a church as a bridge structure for the St. Simeon congregation on the Luisenstädtischer Canal did not materialize. On October 31, 1893, the foundation stone for the new church was laid at Wassertorstrasse 21a . It was inaugurated on December 8, 1897. A chapel built in 1869 as an emergency church was moved to the rear of the property to make room for the new building.
The construction costs amounted to 515,000 marks (today: around 3,673,000 euros), 90,000 of which were for the parish hall. The church was named after Simeon, who, according to the Gospel of Luke, saw the future Savior with his eyes. In 1897, the churchyard of Saint Simeon and Saint Luke was set up for burials.
On February 3, 1945, the church was destroyed. The destruction of the Second World War gave cause for structural analysis of the churches. The church was no longer viewed as a pure place of worship, but as a community center that can also fulfill the community's social tasks. This had structural consequences because it was no longer just about restoring the historical details. The reconstruction after the Second World War, progress has been gradual, so that the church only on 26 February 1961 by Bishop Otto Dibelius again inaugurated was.
building
Schwechten chose Gothic forms for the brick building. The recourse to the historical style is based on the " Eisenacher Regulativ " of 1861. This "plundering of building history", as well as the willing implementation of the architectural taste of Wilhelm II , was however already violently attacked by contemporaries. This criticism also hit Schwechten. His industrial buildings , on the other hand, were considered to be trend-setting.
A four-storey building that serves as an entrance and community center is located in the straight line of the street. In the symmetrical five-axis facade, the outer axes are preferred. They are flanked by pillars and finished with gables. The masonry structure is faced with red Rathenow bricks in the monastery format and with brown and green glaze stones . The 76.5 meter high square tower with an octagonal pointed helmet rises directly from the middle section on the street front.
In the tower hang three cast steel bells from the Bochumer Verein bell foundry from 1897, which were not melted down for the production of projectiles in both world wars.
| Chime | Weight (kg) | Diameter (cm) | Height (cm) | inscription |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| b ° | 2570 | 184 | 176 | GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST. LK. 2.14 |
| it' | 1286 | 143 | 116 | THERE IS A PEACE OF REST FOR THE PEOPLE OF GOD. HEBR. 4.9 |
| ges' | 854 | 126 | 108 | COME TO ME ALL WHO ARE TOUGH AND LOADED, I WANT TO REFRESH YOU. MT. 11.29 |
A cross-shaped hall church with a transept and a rectangular choir was attached to the rear as a crossbar . The aisles were reduced to aisles. The first nave yoke and the transept arms had galleries . The walls were plastered and painted. The dividing parts were made of red bricks, the columns and the capitals of sandstone. The trusses and rafters could be seen on the wooden ceiling . The north side of the nave was adorned with a large rose window .
The bell storey of the tower structure consists of large open tracery arcades . Above is the clock.
The portal is adorned with two larger than life sandstone figures - Simeon and Hannah . The church was rebuilt in several stages, initially under the direction of senior building officer Jorcke and senior building officer Berndt, then under the direction of architect Willy Rossa. The mighty nave was divided horizontally at the height of the gallery in order to gain community rooms the size of the church on the ground floor. In place of the chancel, an extension with a staircase was built to get to the upper floor, where the church room is located. The sanctuary is now on the tower side. The spire was renewed in a simplified form. In 1956 the tower received its gilded cross again. The front meeting house was restored a year later. Between 1981 and 1984 the front and tower were renovated.
Refugee Church
On October 8, 2015, Bishop Markus Dröge opened the St. Simeon Church in a solemn service as the first refugee church in Germany. With the idea of such a church, a place was created for people who, regardless of their origin, denomination, language, legal status, age and gender, can meet and receive advice and help on all questions. On December 20, 2016, Dagmar Apel was introduced to her office as a regional church pastor for migration and integration and as a consultant for the Berlin Missionswerk in the refugee church.
literature
- Architects and Engineers Association of Berlin: Berlin and its buildings. Part VI. Sacred buildings. Berlin 1997.
- Günther Kühne, Elisabeth Stephani: Evangelical churches in Berlin. Berlin 1978.
- Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments. Band Berlin. Munich / Berlin 2006.
- Christine Goetz , Mathias Hoffmann-Tauschwitz: Churches Berlin Potsdam. Berlin 2003.
- Klaus-Dieter Wille: The bells of Berlin (West). History and inventory. Berlin 1987.
Web links
- Entry in the Berlin State Monument List with further information
- Information about the Church of St. Simeon on the website of the Evangelical Church Community in Kreuzberg-Mitte
- St. Simeon's refugee church, Berlin
Individual evidence
- ↑ Information from the EKBO on the occasion of the opening of the refugee church ( memento of the original from January 16, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 1.8 ″ N , 13 ° 24 ′ 23.7 ″ E