St. Briccius (Hall)

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View from the cemetery side
Nave and transverse tower

St. Briccius , one of the oldest churches in Halle (Saale) , is a Protestant church in the former farming and fishing village of Trotha , which is now a district in the north of Halle. The parish of Halle-Trotha belongs to the parish Trotha-Seeben in the parish cooperation center-north in the parish of Halle-Saalkreis of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany . In the register of monuments of the city of Halle , the church is listed as a monument under registration number 094 05079.

history

At the site of today's church there was initially a West Slavic cult site, which was built over with a wooden baptistery and prayer chapel after the (East) Franconian conquest. This wooden structure could have been erected as early as possible during the time of Charlemagne (768 to 814 King of the Frankish Empire) from the year 806. It is more likely, however, that it will be built from the late 920s or even later, for example from 966, after the Sorbian village became the property of the Mauritius monastery in Magdeburg .

The church was first mentioned in the files of the Neuwerk monastery in 1116. In 1121 Archbishop Rüdiger von Magdeburg donated the town of Trotha to Neuwerk Monastery. The late Romanesque stone church was built around 1150. It is dedicated to St. Briccius , a disciple of St. Martin of Tours . Trotha stayed with Neuwerk Monastery until the monastery was dissolved in 1520. Since 1525, when the congregation converted to the Protestant faith, the church had a Protestant pastor.

During the Thirty Years' War the church was repeatedly devastated, for example in 1636 by troops from the Electorate of Saxony .

In 1730 the church was sparingly rebuilt in baroque style and the nave was extended by about one meter to the south. The entrance was moved to the east side and large rectangular windows were installed. The altar was moved to the west side of the tower, where the pulpit and crucifix were also located.

In 1896 the interior of the church, damaged by lightning, had to be renewed.

With industrialization in the 19th century, the number of parishioners increased sharply, so that the church had to be expanded. In 1910/1911 a southern extension was therefore built. The eastern entrance door was closed again using a Romanesque column and a new entrance was created in the west. Two oriels with two windows each were placed on the roof of the church and a sacristy was added to the east. The east orientation of the altar was restored inside.

During the First and Second World Wars , two of the three bells had to be given for armament purposes. Today's bells are a donation from 1957.

Structure and equipment

The quarry stone church, which is late Romanesque in its core, dates from the middle of the 12th century. The west cross tower with gable roof and the north and east walls are still preserved from the construction period . The wooden barrel ceiling inside comes from the renovation in 1730.

The crucifix from 1520, the oldest piece of furniture in the church, is attributed to Georg Ihener from Orlamünde, who is said to have also worked on the altar paintings in the Moritzkirche . When the sanctuary was redesigned in 1954, the crucifix was placed over the altar.

The L-shaped galleries in the southern extension were added during the renovation in 1910. Further pieces of equipment in simple Art Nouveau forms from this period are the wooden pulpit on the north side, a lectern, a baptismal font and chairs. Two leaded glass windows were donated by the von Trotha family for the windows on the north wall in 1911 in memory of their old ancestral home.

The furnishings originally included a late Romanesque font from the 12th or 13th century. After the community had given it up for cracks in 1830, it is now in the Gothic vault of the Moritzburg Museum (Halle) .

The organ (18 registers, 2 manuals, 1 pedal, action: pneumatic) from 1899 on the west gallery comes from the workshop of the Zörbig master organ builder Wilhelm Rühlmann .

St. Briccius surrounds the evangelical cemetery of the community. There is also a gravestone designed by Gerhard Marcks for Erich Consemüller , which is shown in Marcks' catalog raisonné.

The war memorial in front of the church

In honor of the memory of the soldiers from Trotha who died in World War I, the Protestant parish had an obelisk made of shell limestone , crowned with the Iron Cross , erected in front of the church. The inauguration took place on July 4, 1926; the monument was not damaged during the Second World War .

On June 3, 1947, the parish of St. Briccius lodged an objection to the Soviet city command against the request of the municipal building authorities not to disrupt the demolition work on the war memorial , referring to the "decision of the control council" and the change made on July 12, 1946 in Article 4. According to this, the monuments that were dedicated to the memory of those who died in regular units, that did not express Nazi ideology or did not show any corresponding symbols, should not be removed . The parish also pointed out that the memorial was on the church's own premises.

Although the decision of the city headquarters was still pending, the building authorities had the war memorial blown up on June 9, 1947 and the rubble removed. It was not until June 11 that the city administration informed the parish of the decision of the military commander, Colonel Tschaikin: “The obelisk on the church in Trotha will not be blown up!” - The parish appealed against the demolition on July 18, 1947 and demanded compensation . On August 9, 1947, the building administration sent a letter to the Protestant parish of St. Briccius. Therein the hasty demolition was regretted, but at the same time a claim for damages was rejected.

literature

Web links

Commons : St. Briccius  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Parish areas and parishes on the church district website. Retrieved November 19, 2018

Coordinates: 51 ° 30 ′ 43.5 "  N , 11 ° 57 ′ 29.3"  E