St. Bernhard (Brandenburg an der Havel)

Saint Bernhard in Brandenburg

The St. Bernhard Chapel is a former Catholic branch church and architectural monument in the city of Brandenburg an der Havel in the Altstadt district .

history

With the laying of the foundation stone of the steelworks in Brandenburg in 1912, the construction of the new and now listed rolling mill settlement began . In 1919, the factory management bought the small house settlement Wilhelmshof from the city, initially with 24 houses. In the spring of 1920, 146 new apartments were ready for occupancy in today's area of Bayernstrasse and Thüringer Strasse. Initially, the town's Catholic community held a service every fortnight in a rolling mill barracks. Financed with donations, a new functionalist church was built on Thüringer Straße and consecrated in 1934 by Bishop Nikolaus Bares . The patron saint is St. Bernard of Clairvaux , a Cistercian whose friars founded the Lehnin Monastery , which is close to the city of Brandenburg .

In addition to the Catholic Holy Trinity Congregation, the Russian Orthodox Congregation used Our Lady of God - Joy of All Afflicted Saint Bernhard for church services. In 2013 the church was put up for sale by the Catholic community. The small chapel was used for worship from 1934 to 2014. The last Holy Mass was celebrated there on August 30, 2014 .

In 2015, the St. Bernhard Community Church Brandenburg was founded, which acquired the church the following year. The building has been used as a St. Bernhard meeting center since 2017 . Since then, church services have also been celebrated again.

Building

Sankt Bernhard is a simple gray plastered building. The church is continuously connected to the neighboring row house in the east and is thus the western end of a closed row of houses. The west portal in the tower with a masonry bricks designed. The tower protrudes somewhat like a risk. In the ascent to the belfry there is a three-part rectangular window and rectangular sound opening to the east and west. Above is a gable roof with a gable to the east and a gable to the west. A cross is attached to the western gable. The nave is also under a gable roof. Six small rectangular windows were installed to the north and south.

Church interior

Inside the church (2014)

The interior of the church was simply designed in 2014. The smooth walls were plastered white, the wooden altar unadorned. On the left of the altar there was a wooden portrait of the Virgin , on the right a sculpture of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. The church windows with leaded glazing were made by August Wagner in 1948 according to Werner Kleinschmidt's designs . Between the windows were the stations of the cross . The Russian Orthodox community that shared the church put up several icons . To the right of the entrance was a small, portable organ and behind it was a relief plate with the names of the parishioners who died in World War II .