St. John (Lychen)

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St. John of Lychen

Sankt Johannes is the Protestant town church of Lychen ( Uckermark district ) in Brandenburg . The church belongs to the parish of Upper Havel country of the Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Oberlausitz . The church building was erected as a simple hall church in the second half of the 13th century. In the centuries that followed, the parish added and rebuilt the church several times; it stands since the 1970s under monument protection .

location

The church building, built as a fortified church , stands on the highest elevation in Lychen's old town. As is typical of the church, it is oriented in an east-west direction. The postal address of the church is Vogelgesangstrasse 25. The choir , which was added around 1350 , was built on the east side, the west side is the massive church tower . The churchyard was located in front of the southern long side of the building until 1763 .

architecture

Outside

View to the west tower

The sacred building was of hewn granite - fieldstone in early gothic built style. The nave is a flat-roofed, internally plastered hall building with a retracted rectangular choir and a three-window group. The two meter thick walls of the structure are supported from the outside by buttresses. Of the original two entrances to the church building, only the north entrance with a pointed arch portal has survived; the south entrance was walled up after the apse was added in 1752. Some relics of the renovation work have remained visible on the outer walls.

Traces of history on the church walls

The lower part of the nave-wide tower is also made of granite blocks. This substructure is followed by a masonry made of bricks , representatively faced with multi-colored bricks on white plaster mirrors. The tower is closed with a tiled roof, on each of the two ridge gables a cross is placed. In the tower there is a ringing of bells ("old prayer bells"). The wooden staircase in the tower is one of the few remaining original parts from the first time the church was built.

Main portal

The entrance door to the tower is ogival and leads into a small church service area that serves as a winter church . At the same time, a whitewashed niche has been set up to commemorate the dead from the two world wars .

The south-west corner of the tower on the slope is clearly visible with strong buttresses to prevent slipping.

Inside

View towards the choir through the main room

The original interior design and furnishings were completely destroyed in the great city fire in 1684. During the reconstruction, the church received a high altar in the baroque style, a new pulpit and a new gallery . Under the choir there is a crypt in which the deceased parish priests were buried until around 1800. At the beginning of the 20th century the entrance was walled up.

altar

The altar bears the year 1698 and a saying in God's honor (“Gloria in excelsis deo”). It is adorned with depictions from the life of Christ. Originally he also carried an altar crucifix, which was brought to the church archives after the restoration in the 1960s. The master carpenter Horst Jähnke from Lychen refurbished the wooden crucifix, the height of which with the base was 153 cm, in the 2010s.

Behind the altar, three high-format arched windows are worked into the front wall of the apse, which are decorated with ornamental stained glass in the form of a ribbon, they date from the 19th century. At the very top one shows the symbol of the Holy Spirit , the white dove. Below that, square ornaments in green, red, yellow, blue and white alternate with three simplified Bible scenes, which are also square.

Altar window

A large carpet in the choir is striking, bearing the inscription Lychen 1903 St Johannes Kirche . The symbols of the four evangelists are knotted into its four corners , in the middle around the sun water ( Aqua ), earth ( Terra ), air ( Aer ) and Johannis are shown in the form of a rosette.

Choir carpet and choir stalls

A short staircase leads up to the pulpit, on which four faded and barely recognizable pictures with inscriptions are attached (a heart with a cross, a furnace with a Bible above, a cross with a letter in Hebrew script and a pilgrim climbing a mountain) . The pulpit rests on a carved ornamental column and is framed by other columns.

The large wall surfaces, which were painted with temple curtains between 1906 and 1960, have been painted over in white in the main room of the church. The wall surfaces behind the choir benches still (or again?) Carry the curtain painting.

With the paintwork in blue, white and gold, the altar, pulpit and organ prospect underline the baroque character of the furnishings, which all date from the end of the 17th century.

Baptismal font from 1964

In 1964, a simple baptismal font made of limestone replaced the original, round one, which rested on four angel-shaped feet. After its removal, the historic wooden basin from 1840 was kept in the outbuildings of the rectory, but suffered from the effects of the weather. The parish intends to restore the old basin and estimates the cost of the restoration at around 9,000 euros , which will be raised through donations. Master carpenter Jähnke carried out his first work in 2017.

Organ gallery and prospectus

On the gallery is an organ from 1907, made in the workshop of the organ builder Felix Grüneberg from Stettin . The organ has 24 registers and 1684 organ pipes. The organ prospect is in Baroque style, as is the balustrade of the gallery. The Fahlberg company from Eberswalde restored the instrument in 1988.

In the sacristy there are other colorful windows that were inserted after the great fire. Their production goes back to foundations of wealthy families in the area. The founders are named on the edge of some windows and the year is given (for example the Friebel, Kahlbaum, Stechbart, Vietze or Wetzel families).

a chandelier

Two large chandeliers hang down from the ceiling in the interior of the choir . Two more chandeliers were stolen in 1974. The four chandeliers were foundations of the guild masters of the shoemakers, the tailors, the bakers and the locksmiths from Lychen.

Earlier furnishings from the St. John's Church are exhibited under the side galleries, along with explanatory panels on their history. Among other things, there is the crucifix and probably the plate from the baptismal table with a symbolic representation of the sun (as of July 2019).

history

Historical view of the church with the rectory in the foreground, 1919

The church was consecrated to St. Mary in 1263 . The Order of St. John , who founded a commandery and established hospitals in Lychen towards the end of the 13th century , received patronage over the parish church in 1302. The Johanniter changed the patronage and consecrated the church to St. John the Baptist , after whom the order was named.

The upper floors of the west tower received their decorative panels in the 15th century.

In 1684 - during the great fire in Lychen - the roof of the church burned down and the walls remained standing. But the entire church archive was destroyed. A Frenchman had set the fire on behalf of his king, and he had also infected three other places in Brandenburg . He was caught by the gendarmes and sentenced to death by fire ("pinched four times with red-hot pliers").

In 1835, the artist and bronze manufacturer Carl August Mencke from Berlin gave the church a magnificent baptismal table made of wood bronze .

After redesigning the interior of the church in 1902, the parish sold the altar figure of Our Lady of Sorrows with Jesus Christ taken from the cross for 30 marks to the Märkisches Museum in Berlin . In the 21st century, the wooden figure made around 1440 is in the museum depot in Berlin-Spandau ; it is considered the only surviving piece of equipment from the first construction period. It has survived the Reformation, fires, wars and looting and is now to be restored. According to this plan, the Pietà will be given back to the Johannesgemeinde as a permanent loan if it receives optimal installation conditions there. The campaign is to be financed through donations, supported by the CDU member of the state parliament and chairman of the parish council, Henryk Wichmann .

The interior of the church was renovated in the previous centuries as well as in the years 1906, 1960–1964, 1985 and between 2010 and 2014. The last external renovation work was under the direction of the architect Sabine Stich and was largely financed by subsidies. Funding could also be obtained for the necessary interior renovation. The community also contributed to all of the work with its own money.

use

The church building continues to serve religious purposes. Outside of the services, people can visit the church at any time, it is an open church . Organ, choir and orchestra concerts are often held in the church during the summer months. A tour led by the pastor is possible by appointment.

Church work

Past pastors of the Protestant parish St. Johannes were (selection):

  • Gerhard Stechbart, (until 2013).
  • Gernot Fleischer, since 2014.

Closer contacts have been established with the Altenkirchen church district since before the fall of the Wall, after which a partnership agreement was concluded.

The Badische Landeskirche is a partner congregation of the parish of Oberes Havelland.

The St. John's Congregation has around 500 Christians (as of 2014).

In the neighborhood

To the west of the church building is the single-storey half-timbered rectory .

To the east of the town church is the baroque town hall of Lychen. On the square in front of the town hall, Lychen's coat of arms was designed with colored paving stones .

literature

  • Georg Dehio (editor Gerhard Vinken and others): Handbook of German Art Monuments Brandenburg. German Art Publishing House 2012.
  • Gustav Metscher: Chronicle of the City of Lychen , 1933; cited as the main source in the flyer . Metscher was the school director in Lychen.
  • Neue Lychener Zeitung, May 2007: Thoughts on the oldest cityscape of Lychen .

Web links

Commons : St. Johannes (Lychen)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Georg Piltz: Art Guide through the GDR 4th edition, Urania-Verlag, Leipzig / Jena / Berlin. 1973; P. 102.
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Stadtkirche Sankt Johannes zu Lychen ; Double-sided leaflet, status from 2019, published by the Lychener Pfarramt.
  3. ↑ a b c d New shine for the old church tower . In: Uckermark-Kurier , August 17, 2010. Accessed December 3, 2019.
  4. ↑ Information board behind the table, seen and photographed on July 5, 2019.
  5. ↑ Display board with historical photos and an appeal for donations. Seen and photographed on July 5, 2019.
  6. ↑ a b Funding for Lychen Church promised , on Märkische online newspaper from August 1, 2014. Accessed December 3, 2019.
  7. ↑ Chronicle of the City of Lychen .

Coordinates: 53 ° 12 ′ 32.3 "  N , 13 ° 18 ′ 56.4"  E