St. Thomas Church (Berlin)

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St. Thomas Church
Blackboard at the main entrance

The St. Thomas Church and St. Thomas Church of the Evangelical Church of St. Thomas in the parish of Berlin city center , at the northern end of Marianne square in Berlin district of Kreuzberg area, is a late classical church from the 19th century. St. Thomas was about the geographical center of the densely populated Luisenstadt Berlin. At the time of its construction, the church was the largest sacred building in Berlin with 3000 seats and the St. Thomas Congregation with around 150,000 members was one of the largest Protestant congregations in the world.

The building floor plan has the shape of a Latin cross . A 56 meter high dome rises in the center, and two 48 meter high towers are located in the direction of Mariannenplatz .

The name St. Thomas refers to the apostle Thomas .

history

The Thomaskirche was built between 1865 and 1869 by the architect Friedrich Adler , a student of Friedrich August Stüler's , on behalf of the Berlin city administration. For the architect, the building that made him famous across Germany represented the breakthrough in his career.

During the Second World War , an air raid on November 22, 1942 destroyed the choir windows and the eastern gallery of the church. The equipment was completely lost during the war and in the first post-war years . The reconstruction took place between 1956 and 1963 by Werner Retzlaff and Ludolf von Walthausen. The facade was reconstructed according to historical templates, the interior, however, underwent some changes.

After the church had to be closed in 1985 due to asbestos contamination and in 1998 due to renewed renovation of the facade, the church has been open again since 1999.

150 years of St. Thomas Church 1869–2019

On December 21, 2019, the congregation celebrated the 150th anniversary of the opening of the church (December 21, 1869) with a festive service. Guest preacher was Bishop Christian Stäblein . An exhibition in the interior shows the Thomaskirche in the course of time. Under the motto Eins.Getrennt.Vereint the 30th anniversary of the opening of the Wall is remembered.

Parish

The parish of St. Thomas had around 150,000 parishioners until the newly formed Emmaus parish around Görlitz train station was separated in 1887, making it one of the largest parishes in the world.

With the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, the community was divided and was also no longer in the center of the city, but on the outskirts of West Berlin . The difficult social conditions in Kreuzberg also had an impact on the community, which played an active role in the squatting in the 1980s.

In 2006 the congregation had around 1,800 and in 2019 around 1,500 members.

Festive service 150 years of St. Thomas Church December 21, 2019

organ

The main organ came from Rudolf von Beckerath Orgelbau . She has the following disposition :

I Hauptwerk C – g 3
Dumped 16 ′
Principal 8th'
Reed flute 8th'
octave 4 ′
Hollow flute 4 ′
Nasat 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
octave 2 ′
third 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′
Mixture V 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
Trumpet 8th'
II upper structure C – g 3
Wooden dacked 8th'
Reed flute 4 ′
Fifth 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
Forest flute 2 ′
Fifth 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
Sesquialtera II 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
Sharp IV 1'
Cromorne 8th'
Tremulant
Pedal C – f 1
Principal 16 ′
Open flute 8th'
Choral bass 4 ′
Night horn 2 ′
Rauschpfeife IV 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
trombone 16 ′
Trumpet 8th'
shawm 4 ′

literature

  • Adler: The St. Thomas Church in Berlin. In: Journal of Construction . Year 21 (1871), col. 19-26, 321-328, plates 11-22. Digitized in the holdings of the Central and State Library Berlin .
  • Hans-Joachim Beeskow : Guide through the St. Thomas Church in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Heimat-Verlag, Lübben 2002, ISBN 3-929600-24-2 .
  • Christine Goetz (Ed.): Churches - Berlin Potsdam. Guide to the churches in Berlin and Potsdam. Wichern-Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-88981-140-X .
  • Parish church council of the St. Thomas parish (ed.): 125 years of St. Thomas church. Berlin 1994.
  • Matthias Hoffmann-Tauschwitz: Old Churches in Berlin. 33 visits to the oldest churches in the western part of the city. 2. revised Edition, Wichern-Verlag, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-88981-048-9 , pp. 298-309.
  • Matthias Hoffmann-Tauschwitz: Paths to Berlin Churches. Suggestions for exploring church sites in the western part of Berlin. Wichern-Verlag, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-88981-031-4 , p. 60 f.
  • Günther Kühne and Elisabeth Stephani: Evangelical Churches in Berlin. 2nd edition, CZV-Verlag, Berlin 1986, ISBN 3-7674-0158-4 , p. 62 f.

Web links

Commons : St. Thomas Church  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 19 ″  N , 13 ° 25 ′ 36 ″  E