St. Afra (Berlin)

St. Afra Church

The Roman Catholic St. Afra Church in the gray road 31 of the Berlin local part healthy well in the Mitte district was from 1897 to 1898 in neo-Gothic architectural style of Carl Moritz built and J. Welz. The building complex of the St. Afra monastery with the church in the courtyard is a listed building .

history

The Congregation of the Sisters of St. In 1882 Elisabeth took over the management of the monastery named after St. Afra von Augsburg in Turmstrasse in Moabit . When the branch of the nuns in Moabit became too small, the spacious complex was built in the Wedding district in 1898. The family of Friedrich Carl von Savigny contributed a considerable amount to the construction costs with the condition that the local Catholics were also allowed to take part in the Holy Masses in St. Afra.

In 1903 the St. Afra congregation was spun off from Herz Jesu in Prenzlauer Berg . The future French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman lived in the complex as a student at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in 1905/06, which is commemorated by a bronze plaque on the front building. In 1907 St. Afra became a curate , in 1921 it was elevated to a parish , which was renamed St. Augustine in 1924. Since the coexistence of congregation and abbey residents was difficult, the first pastor of the congregation tried to build his own church. In 1928 St. Augustine's Church was consecrated and the congregation left St. Afra. When the Berlin Wall was erected and the parish of St. Augustine was cut up, the western part of the parish returned to St. Afra. Since the number of members in the parish fell sharply, in 1971 it first formed a parish association with St. Sebastian . In 1978 the parish of St. Afra was finally merged with that of St. Sebastian. At the same time the monastery was cleared for renovation. The sisters later continued to run the front building as a retirement home .

In 1996 the Sisters of St. Elisabeth St. Afra. In 2006, the St. Philipp Neri Institute initially acquired the church, and in 2008 also the associated buildings. The liturgy is celebrated in the extraordinary form of the Roman rite .

Building description

The building complex of St. Afra-pin, one with red bricks disguised or white plastered masonry , consists of a to the closed block development integrated five-storey residential house and outhouses of two wings and rear building. The three-nave hall church is integrated into the transverse building, which is covered with a roof in the shape of a truncated pyramid .

Exterior

The facade of the church differs from the surrounding tenement houses , which are also listed buildings. A risalit in the form of North German brick Gothic across the width of three window axes is flanked by loggias and balconies . In the middle window axis at the level of the third floor there is a wall niche originally intended for a statue, which is, however, empty; there is a bay window above . Above the eaves of the buttress is of a stepped gable crowned that with tracery - visor is decorated. A two-aisled cloister in the right side wing leads from the entrance gate on the side to the transverse building. A covered staircase leads to the church, which is on the first floor above the former Elisabethinnen refectory . On the courtyard side, the church interior is defined by a triangular gable on the facade of the transverse building . During the renovation of the two neighboring blocks of houses, their side wings were demolished in 1977. In order to gain more light for the inner courtyard of the monastery building, the upper floors were removed from its side wings.

Interior

Choir room

The three-aisled nave , whose polygonal choir protrudes into the rear property, has a groin vault . Above the vault there is another floor that used to contain lounges for the monastery residents. Arched galleries with tracery parapets stretch around the three bays of the church . At the end of the vaulted aisles under the galleries, separated by very flat arcades , there are small polygonal chapels. The large tracery windows on the choir wall and the ogival windows on the facade illuminate the interior of the church. There is a crypt under the choir .

Furnishing

Neo-Gothic figures of saints in the choir and neo-Gothic side altars have been preserved from the construction period . In the church are the relics of the holy martyr Siméon-François Berneux M.EP (1814–1866).

organ

The organ on the right gallery, made in 1898 by the organ building workshop Dinse ( Berlin-Kreuzberg ), was dismantled because it no longer worked. The Dinse organ is now - restored and expanded - in the parish church of St. Marien in Fröndenberg . It has been replaced by an organ with a Victorian prospect , built in 1869 by the English organ builder William Hill for the Trinity Methodist Church in Burton on Trent, which closed in 2011 , which was restored and rebuilt in 2014 by the Czech organ builder Rieger-Kloss Orgelbau, Krnov . When the organ was consecrated on November 22, 2015, it was played in public for the first time after the restoration.

Disposition

II Great C – g 3 Bourdon 16 ′ Open diapason 08th' Small open diapason 08th' Stopped diapason 08th' Gamba 08th' Principal 04 ′ Harmonic flute 04 ′ Twelfth 02 2 ⁄ 3  ′ Fifteenth 02 ′ Mixture III Trumpet 08th' tuba 08th' Great Suboctave Great to Pedal

III Swell C-g 3 (Epistle page) Bourdon 16 ′ Open diapason 08th' Pipe flute 08th' Salicional 08th' Vox Angelica 08th' Voix Celestes 08th' Gemshorn 04 ′ Suabe Flute 04 ′ Fifteenth 02 ′ Mixture III Double clarinet 16 ′ Cornopean 08th' oboe 08th' Clarion 04 ′ Tremulant Swell Octave Swell Suboctave Swell to Great Swell to Choir Swell to Pedal Swell Octave to Great Swell Suboctave to Great Swell Octave to Choir Swell Suboctave to Choir Swell Octave to Pedal Swell unison off Melodie Swell to Great

I Choir C – g 3 (Gospel page) Gedact 8th' Viol d'Orchestre 8th' Aeoline 8th' Flood 4 ′ Nazard 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′ Piccolo 2 ′ Tierce 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′ Larigot 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′ Orchestral oboe 8th' Clarinet 8th' tuba 8th' Tremulant Choir Octave Choir Suboctave Choir to Great Choir to Pedal Choir Octave to Great Choir Suboctave to Great Choir Octave to Pedal Choir Unison off Melodie Choir to Swell

Pedal C – f 1 Resultant bass 32 ′ Open diapason 16 ′ Violone 16 ′ Bourdon 16 ′ Echo Bourdon 16 ′ Principal 08th' viola 08th' Bass flute 08th' Choral flute 04 ′ Trombones 16 ′ Tromba 08th' 64 general combinations , each 8 work combinations × 20 levels Great and Pedal combinations coupled crescendo pedal setting system

literature

• Dehio-Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler, Berlin. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2006.
• Christine Goetz , Matthias Hoffmann-Tauschwitz: Churches Berlin Potsdam. Berlin 2003.
• Architects and Engineers Association of Berlin (ed.): Sacral buildings. (=  Berlin and its buildings , part 6) Ernst & Sohn, Berlin 1997.
• Gerhard Streicher, Erika Drave: Berlin. City and church. Berlin 1980.
• Julia Haak: Divine service in Latin. St. Afra in Wedding maintains the old Roman rite . In: Berliner Zeitung , February 21, 2016

Web links

Commons : St. Afra Church (Berlin-Gesundbrunnen)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Entry in the Berlin State Monument List with further information
• Homepage of the Philipp Neri Institute

Individual evidence

1. ↑ English church organ in a Berlin church. (No longer available online.) Kulturradio .de, October 23, 2015, archived from the original on November 25, 2015 ; Retrieved November 25, 2015 . 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 ° 32 ′ 43.7 "  N , 13 ° 23 ′ 51.6"  E