Labiau town church

Evangelical town church Labiau (East Prussia) (no longer available)
Construction year:	14th Century
Style elements :	Feldsteinkirche , Hallenkirche (three aisles)
Location:	54 ° 51 '48.3 "  N , 21 ° 6' 31"  E Coordinates: 54 ° 51 '48.3 "  N , 21 ° 6' 31"  E
Location:	Polessk Kaliningrad , Russia
Purpose:	Evangelical Lutheran Parish Church
Regional Church :	Church province of East Prussia of the Church of the Old Prussian Union

The town church in Labiau was a stone church from the end of the 14th century and, next to the Königsberg Cathedral, the only three-aisled hall church in northern East Prussia . Until 1945 it was the Protestant parish church for the parish of the city of Labiau (today: Polessk) in the Russian Oblast Kaliningrad ( Koenigsberg area (Prussia) ).

Geographical location

The district town called today Polessk is four kilometers south of the Curonian Lagoon on the Russian trunk road A 190 (former German Reichsstrasse 126 ), which leads from Kaliningrad (Königsberg) to Bolshakowo (Groß Skaisgirren , 1938-1946 Kreuzingen) . The city is also a train station on the Kaliningrad – Sovetsk (Koenigsberg – Tilsit) railway line . The location of the church was in the center of the city not far from the old market square and is now covered by a multi-storey residential building.

Church building

The Labiau town church was a three-aisled choirless hall church made of plastered field stone . With the brick west tower in front of it , its foundation went back to the end of the 14th century. It is said to have been renovated or rebuilt as early as 1545. The subdivision of the space into three naves and the vaulting was only carried out later. The cell vault was dated to the middle of the 16th century. In the aisles were galleries built.

In 1871 the church underwent a major renovation, replacing damaged furnishings with new ones. The pulpit was placed above the simple altar on the east wall.

In 1701 the church received an organ built by Johann Josua Mosengel , which was replaced in 1870 by a new building by Wilhelm Sauer in Frankfurt (Oder) . The two bells were from 1837.

The church building was damaged in World War II , in 1958 the steeple with a spire was still standing, and the vaults were also preserved. However, it threatened to decline. In the 1960s, the structure was demolished to extract building material. The foundations were used for the new building of a five-storey unplastered house, which now takes the place of the church.

Parish

A church was founded in Labiau as early as the 13th century. The Reformation arrived here in the 1520s , so that a Lutheran clergyman was officiating here as early as 1532 . From 1622 a second clergyman was added, who mainly took care of the Lithuanian interests of the community. This so-called "Lithuanian pastor" was rector of the city school until 1719.

Labiau was one of the larger parishes in the church province of East Prussia . In 1925 , the extensive parish had a total of 8,904 parishioners who lived in the town of Labiau or in 42 larger and smaller towns in a strip of land between Rinderort (today Russian: Saliwino) on the Curonian Lagoon in the north and Friedrichsburg (today Russian: Furmanowka) in South, characterized by fishing villages, meadow villages and several large estates.

Until 1945 the parish of the town church Labiau belonged to the parish of Labiau in the church province of East Prussia of the Church of the Old Prussian Union .

As a result of flight and displacement as a result of the Second World War and the subsequent restrictive religious policy of the Soviet Union , church life in Labiau and in all of northern East Prussia came to a standstill.

It was not until the 1990s that an Evangelical Lutheran congregation formed again in Polessk. It is now a subsidiary of the Church of the Resurrection in Kaliningrad (Königsberg) in the Kaliningrad provost of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of European Russia .

Parish places

In addition to the city of Labiau, the Labiau parish counted 42 villages in the surrounding area:

Surname	Change name 1938–1946	Russian name		Surname	Change name 1938–1946	Russian name
* Nobleman Bärwalde		Ivanovka		Klein Naujock	Alder forest
(Noble) Goltzhausen until 1916: Noble Bielkenfeld		Ivanovka		Little Pöppeln
(Alt) Pustlauken	Hallenau	Lugowoje		Small Reikenink	Kleinreinken
(Old) Rinderort		Saliwino		Kleinhof
Brandlauken	Brandfelde	Svobodny		Kreutzweg	Way of the Cross
Bulbeckshöfchen until 1912: Bulbeckshof				* Labagien	Haffwinkel	Saliwino
Eichwalde				New Bärwalde		Ivanovka
Friedrichsburg		Furmanovka		New Pustlauken
* Garden village				New place of cattle
Courts of happiness				Neuhof district of Labiau
* Grabenhof				Ottoburg
Groß Bärwalde		Ivanovka		Peldszen, 1936–1938: Peldschen	Deimemünde
Great Ernstburg				Radtkenhöfen
Great Naujock	Hindenburg			Rehwinkel
Big Pöppeln		Rechki		Steinfeld		Trudovoi
Great Reikeninken	Reiken	Podzobny		* Stellienen	Deimetal	Lugowoje
* Hindenburg until 1918: Groß Friedrichsgraben I		Belomorskoye		Thegenwalde
Imbärwalde		Ivanovka		Viehof		Tjulenino
Jourlauken	Way of the Cross			Waldhausen		Druzhnoye
Klein Bärwalde		Ivanovka		Werderhof
Klein Ernstburg		Ivanovka		Westenhöfen

Pastor

The clergy at the town church in Labiau officiated as pastors:

1. Parish office:

• Laurentius N., 1532
• NN., 1535
• Melchior Schwarzhorn, 1541–1545
• Simon Hahn, 1545–1549
• Matthäus Vogel, 1549–1551
• Hieronymus Nutzelius, 1551–1552
• Johann Putrigallus, 1552
• Georg Junghenlein, 1552–1562
• Johannes Bretke , 1562–1587
• David Landenberg, 1587
• Joachim Schenk, 1589–1616
• Johann Wichmann, 1616–1638
• Georg Matthiae, 1638–1656
• Georg Schrötel, 1656–1691
• Johann Klausgall, 1691–1693
• Christian Willam, 1693-1694
• David von Thein, 1694–1709
• Johannes Mrosoviuas, 1710-1713
• Friedrich Oehlert, 1713–1731
• Gottfried Friedrich Grube, 1719–1723
• Wilhelm Friedrich Beckherr, 1731–1768
• Gottfried Dingen, 1768–1787
• Gottlieb Reinhold Weiß, 1787–1820
• Johann Ephraim Reichel, 1820–1839
• Ernst Wilhelm Gottlieb Huwe, 1840–1866
• Heinrich Elias Lehmann, 1866–1893
• Max Rudolf Gustav Adolf Kelch, 1893–1894
• Karl Nikolaiski, 1894-1924
• Georg Kern, 1924–1932
• Anton Caesar Doskocil, 1932–1945

2. Parish office:

• Jacob Wollenberg, 1622-1624
• Heinrich Caesar, until 1627
• Johann Faber, 1627-1630
• Elias Sperber, until 1630
• Georg Matthiae, 1630-1638
• Andreas Riese, 1639–1643
• Simon Meder, 1643-1677
• Christian Willam, 1677-1693
• Christian Neubeccius, 1693–1695
• Petrus Rehwend, 1696–1707
• Georg Friedrich Zimmermann, 1707–1711
• Gotthelf Schultz, 1711–1713
• Johann Großmann, 1713-1719
• Gottfried Friedrich Grube, 1719–1723
• Wilhelm Heinrich Beckherr, 1723–1731
• Erhard Wolf, 1731–1736
• Georg Ernst Klemm, 1736–1741
• Johann Jacob Schröder, 1742–1749
• Johann Friedau, 1749-1760
• Reinhold Ortlieb, 1749–1758
• Johann Christoph Jordan, 1758-1760
• Friedrich Albrecht Fleischmann, 1760–1762
• Christian Michael Poetsch, 1762-1775
• Johann Schöneich, 1775–1778
• Gottlieb Reinhold Weiß, 1778–1787
• Friedrich Naugardt, 1787–1796
• Karl Bulbeck, 1798–1800
• Friedrich Wilhelm Ferdinand Mielke, 1800–1807
• Otto Ulrich Settegast, 1808–1809
• Johannes Rakowski, 1809-1821
• Heinrich Adolf Krüger, 1822–1825
• Christoph Böhmer, 1827–1829
• Adolf August Eduard Kuwert, 1829–1832
• Karl Wilhelm Otto Glogau, 1832–1840
• Ferdinand Ephraim Wenger, 1840–1849
• Johann Fuchs, 1850–1855
• Otto Ohlert, 1855-1860
• Heinrich Elias Lehmann, 1860–1866
• Gottlieb Jäger, 1867
• Albrecht Hoffheinz, 1868–1875
• Carl Heinrich Bernhard Moeller, 1875–1882
• Paul Friedrich, 1887-1896
• Richard Gehlhaar, 1896–1906
• Bernhard Herford, 1907–1938
• Helmut Vierzig, 1939–1945

Pastor Johannes Bretke dealt with the translation of the Bible into the Lithuanian language in Labiau from 1579 . In 1580 he had already translated the New Testament and the Psalms . After moving to the St. Elisabeth Church in Königsberg in 1587, he translated the Old Testament there . The complete work was finished in 1590. His Lithuanian hymnbook was published in 1589.

literature

• Daniel Heinrich Arnoldt : Brief messages from all preachers who have admitted to the Lutheran churches in East Prussia since the Reformation . Königsberg 1777, pp. 48-52.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Historical photo of the town church Labiau from the 1920s / 1930s
2. ↑ Walther Hubatsch , History of the Protestant Church in East Prussia , Volume 2: Pictures of East Prussian Churches , Göttingen, 1968, page 60, Fig. 199 to 201
3. ↑ View into the vault of the church
4. ^ The churches in Labiau at ostpreussen.net
5. ↑ Patrick Plew, The City Church in Labiau
6. ↑ Walther Hubatsch, History of the Protestant Church in East Prussia , Volume 3: Documents , Göttingen, 1968, page 464
7. ^ The parishes of the Labiau / East Prussia district
8. ↑ Evangelical Lutheran Provosty Kaliningrad ( Memento of the original dated August 29, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) 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. (Russian German) 
9. ↑ Walther Hubatsch, History of the Protestant Church in East Prussia , Volume 3 (as above), pages 464 to 465. - * = School location.
10. ↑ Friedwald Moeller, Old Prussian Evangelical Pastor's Book from the Reformation to the Expulsion in 1945 , Hamburg, 1968, pages 79 to 80
11. ↑ Member of the Littuania Corps
12. ^ The churches in Labiau and the translation of the Bible into Lithuanian by Pastor Bretke at ostpreussen.net