John the Baptist (Gwardeisk)

The Church of John the Baptist ( Russian Церковь Иоанна Предтечи / Zerkow Johanna Predtetschni) dates from the early 16th century and was the Protestant town church of Tapiau in East Prussia , today Gwardeisk in Russia , where it serves as a place of worship for the Russian Orthodox community .

Russian Orthodox Church of John the Baptist in Gwardeisk (Tapiau)

Geographical location

Gwardeisk is the district town of Gwardeisk Raion in the Russian Oblast Kaliningrad ( Koenigsberg Region (Prussia) ) and is located 20 kilometers east of the Oblast Capital Kaliningrad ( Koenigsberg ) on the Russian trunk road A 229 , the former German Reichsstrasse 1 , which is here from the Russian trunk road R. 512 is crossed. South of the rivers Deime ( Russian Deima ) and Pregel ( Russian Pregolja ) is the Gwardeisk station on the Kaliningrad – Nesterow railway line ( Königsberg – Stallupönen / Ebenrode ) of the former Prussian Eastern Railway to continue to Lithuania . The Church of John the Baptist is located on the western old market, today's Ploschtschad Pobedy ( Victory Square ).

Church building

Already in 1407 it was mentioned that the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order , Konrad von Jungingen , donated a Madonna picture to the church in Tapiau . Perhaps there was no church in Tapiau at that time, but there was a castle chapel, because a brick parish church was only built in Tapiau in 1502. At that time there was a pastor, Johann Forsterus, who is said to have been active for 40 years.

The church building is a choirless, plastered brick building with a western tower. The church burned down in 1661 and was renovated in 1668. Another fire destroyed the church again in 1689, and it was rebuilt in 1694. A reconstruction in which the building was extended to the east took place in 1767/68.

The vaulted ceiling of the interior was painted with biblical motifs. The altar and the pulpit , like the confessional , were built around 1694. The combination to form a pulpit altar was probably completed in 1767/68.

In the sacristy there was a triptych created for this place : in the middle Jesus on the cross , on the left the apostle Paul , on the right the evangelist Matthew . It came from Lovis Corinth (1858-1925), who gave it to his baptistery.

The organ dates from 1870, the bells from 1684 and 1840.

The former Tapiau Protestant town church was only marginally affected in the Second World War . However, it was then misused and used as a warehouse and office building. The substance of the building withstood rotting until 1991, when it was given to the Russian Orthodox Church . She renovated the church in 1998, equipped it - according to Orthodox tradition - with an iconostasis and consecrated it to John the Baptist .

Parish

Location of the church on Victory Square in Gwardeisk, the former old market in Tapiau

Evangelical

Church history

Tapiau became a church in the last pre-Reformation years. The Reformation found its way here early on , whose administrative structures initially assigned Tapiau to the inspection of the Königsberg preacher , but then until 1945 to the church district of Wehlau (today Russian: Snamensk ) in the church province of East Prussia, which is part of the Church of the Old Prussian Union . From 1735 a second pastor's office was set up, and at the end of the 18th century an additional preacher's position was established, the incumbent of which took over the care of the poor people's institute, later also of the reformatory, housed in the former monastery. From 1898 this area was a separate community of the provincial sanatorium and nursing home Tapiau .

Before 1945, the Tapiauer town church had an extensive parish with more than 20 parish places. In 1925 the parish had 7,600 church members, 1,400 of whom belonged to the institutional community.

Due to the events of the Second World War with the flight and expulsion of the local population as well as the restrictive church policy of the regime of the Soviet Union , Protestant church life in Tapiau came to a standstill. It was not until 1997 that an Evangelical Lutheran congregation was formed again in Gwardeisk, which is a subsidiary congregation of the Resurrection Church in Kaliningrad (Königsberg) and belongs to the Kaliningrad provost of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of European Russia .

Parish places

The following places belonged to the parish of Tapiaus:

Surname	Russian name		Surname	Russian name
* Altenfelde			Neuendorf	Kruglowka
Bieberswalde	Rutschji		Pomauden	Luschki
Damerau, until 1938: Noble Damerau			Pregelswalde	Zarechye
Eisingen			* Romau	Rovnoye
Freiwalde			Sidelack	Polyana
Frischenau	Yelnyaki		Tapiau	Gwardeisk
Hasenberg	Prigorodnoye		Tapiau-Großhof
Imten	Karjernoje		* Tapiau-Kleinhof
Lindenhof			Tapiau-Neuhof
* Magottes	Rechnoye		Tiefenthamm
Koddien			Zohpen	Suvorovo

(* = School locations)

Pastor

Clergy worked in Tapiau until 1945:

• City Church I:

NN., 1527. Paul Grünwald, until 1545. Johann Förster, 1545–1568 Christoph Schröder, 1570–1577 Johann Hostus, 1579–1591 Johann Hirsler, 1591–1600 Josua Haubold, 1600–1610 Christoph Radicke, 1610–1643 Matthias Sethus, 1627-1631 Johann Contenius, 1631-1642 Heinrich Cruse, 1643-1665 Johann Steinröck, 1660–1665 Christoph Rieger, 1665–1679 Erdmann Lehmann, 1679–1684

Georg Meyer, 1684–1699 Gottfried Engelbrecht, 1699–1743 David Woldenscheer, 1743–1755 Christoph F. Hoffmann, 1755–1758 Friedrich Goldbeck, 1758–1801 Friedrich Erhard Jester, 1801–1808 Friedrich Ludwig Bruno, 1808–1828 Carl Friedrich Ventzky, 1828-1832 Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand Bobrick, 1832–1861 August Erhard Schiewe, 1862-1892 Wilhelm Dittmar, 1892–1905 Wilhelm Reinh. Kittlaus, 1906-1929 Walter Machmüller, 1929–1933 Hans Schneider, 1933–1945

• City Church II:

David Woldenscheer, 1735-1744 Johann Christoph Grube, 1744–1750 Friedrich Christoph Hoffmann, 1751–1755 Friedrich Goldbeck, 1755– ^ 1758 Gottfried Dingen, 1758–1768 Friedrich Erhard Jester, 1768–1801 Friedrich Wilhelm Huwe, 1802–1803 Christoph Th. Sembrowski, 1804–1848 Emil Hein, 1850-1851

Wilhelm August Neumann, 1852–1873 Leopold Eugen Muellner, 1873. Carl Ludwig Matthes, 1874–1899 Ernst Wengel, 1899–1913 Willy Behnke, 1903–1905 Wilhelm August Woelk, 1913–1914 Hans Schneider, 1914–1933 Georg Müller, 1933–1938 Johannes Hermann Grau, 1939–1943

• Sanatorium and nursing home:

Christoph Benjamin Dietrich, 1794–1799 Johann Ludwig Böttcher, 1799–1806 Carl Gotthard Mill, 1806-1810 Johann Gottlieb Reyländer, 1811–1818 Ernst Heinrich Bruno, 1818–1827 Christoph Th. Sembrowski, 1827–1834 Georg W. Schiefferdecker, 17´834–1838 Friedrich Tappenteit, 1838–1856 Wilhelm Hermann Julius Eichler, 1856-1859 Johann Constantin Wilhelm Wedemann, 1859–1865

Albert Friedrich W. Herm. Herford, 1865-1867 Carl Fr. Gustav Zimmermann, 1867–1873 Rudolf bernhard Riedel, 1874–1882 Arthur Theodor Ludwig Puzig, 1883–1886 Friedrich Wilhelm Mäckelburg, 1886. Reinhold Theodor Dembowski, 1887-1894 Franz Friczewski, 1894-1897 Kurt EG Viergutz, 1898–1907 Paul Kaschade, 1907-1910 Richard Bernhard Böhnke, 1910–1945

Orthodox

In 1991 the Russian Orthodox Church took over the now dilapidated building of the Tapiau City Church and fundamentally repaired it. As the "Church of John the Baptist", the former town church is now a place of worship for this church, which has belonged to the diocese of Kaliningrad and Baltiysk since 2009 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Building in Tapiau. In: Orte / Infos. On Ostpreussen.net, accessed on December 7, 2019.
2. ↑ Walther Hubatsch : History of the Protestant Church in East Prussia . Volume II: Pictures of East Prussian Churches. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1968, p. 84, fig. 329–331.
3. ↑ Patrick Plew: Tapiau: Baugeschichte / History. In: The churches in Samland. 2013. From Plew.info, accessed December 7, 2019.
4. ↑ 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. (German Russian)  
5. ↑ Walther Hubatsch: History of the Protestant Church in Prussia. Volume III: Documents. Göttingen 1968, pp. 475-476.
6. ↑ Friedwald Moeller: Old Prussian Protestant Pastor's Book from the Reformation to the Expulsion in 1945. Hamburg 1968, pp. 140–141.

Coordinates: 54 ° 38 ′ 52 ″  N , 21 ° 4 ′ 16 ″  E