Vahrenwalder Church
The Vahrenwalder church was a Lutheran church in the district Vahrenwald in Hanover . The parish founded on October 1, 1924, erected the church building largely on its own after the Second World War . On May 19, 2013, the church was dismantled and a newly built church center was built in the same place after it was demolished.
Building description
The church building, completed in 1950, was a three-aisled hall church . It was designed by the architect Gerd Korthaus. The simple interior is dominated by beams made of dark wood, which give it a half-timbered appearance. Noteworthy are three vertical stained glass windows from 1952 in the chancel . They show three biblical motifs: Abraham's intercession for Sodom and Gomorrah , Jesus Christ in the garden of Gethsemane and the prayer of the congregation in the heavenly throne room. The motto on the wall below the window is also striking: Come, we want to go to the LORD again, he has struck us, he will also bind us together ( Hosea 6: 1). The inconspicuous bell tower next to the church was built in 1975. Two bells from the Rincker foundry hang in it , as well as one of the oldest church bells in Hanover from the 15th century. The bells have the tones e 2 , f sharp 2 and a 2 and were shut down in 2008 because the bell tower was in danger of collapsing when it was rung. The organ with 21 registers was built in 1970 by the Gerhard Schmid company from Kaufbeuren . In the 1960s, the church building received several additions for a community center with a hall, cellar and day care center for the elderly. The church is located directly on Vahrenwalder Straße, a major arterial road from the city center to the north.
history
Originally, the residents of the former village of Vahrenwald belonged to the parish in Hainholz . In the course of industrialization , the Vahrenwald population grew rapidly at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1921, pastor Adolf von Chappuzeau from Hainhölzer , in the Vahrenwald district, which is now part of Hanover, acquired the Vahrenwald tower, which stood on the site of the church that was later built. The dance hall of the former excursion restaurant was converted into a place for worship. This facility was an emergency church that was consecrated in 1922. The provisional church building was destroyed in an air raid on Hanover during the Second World War in 1943. The district of Vahrenwald was a preferred target for bomber groups because of the Continental plant located there as an armaments company that was important to the war effort . As a result, a second emergency church was set up elsewhere in Vahrenwald, which was destroyed by fire in 1945. The altar cross was saved from the flames.
The church building was built between 1947 and 1950 on the initiative of parishioners who themselves carried out extensive construction work. Most of the building materials used were rubble stones from war-torn houses, which the women collected during the day. 24 bricklayers also worked as voluntary helpers after their normal work until late at night. The construction costs amounted to around 200,000 DM . On Christmas Eve 1950, Regional Bishop Johannes Lilje inaugurated the church, which was built without the support of official bodies. It was the first new church in Hanover after the war. On May 19, 2013, the Solemnity of Pentecost , the church was in a church by the state superintendent of diocese Hannover Ingrid Spieckermann deconsecrated . The church was demolished.
New church center (2015)
After a transition period, the parish moved to a new church center, which was built on the site of the previous Vahrenwalder church and inaugurated in 2015.
Parish
As early as 1930, the parish, as an emergency church in the former Vahrenwalder Turm restaurant , had around 10,000 members. Pastor Wilhelm Brase, who has been active since 1925, gave the work with young men a strong boost under the name of the oak cross . In order to keep the men "off the street", the oak cross castle was built as a youth castle in the country. It was built in 1928 for 40,000 marks near the Maspe settlement near Bissendorf , about 15 km as the crow flies from the actual church. The parish regularly made Sunday excursions to the castle and also spent its annual festivals here, which were a high point in parish life. The community's young girls' association received a youth home in Vahrenwald in 1928, the wooden Fingerhut Castle . During the time of the Third Reich youth associations of the church were brought into line and their families came to the Hitler Youth or the League of German Girls . All that was left was the oak cross castle, which could not be confiscated by the state because it was in the name of the pastor under land registry law. After the war, the tradition revived of taking excursions to the castle with up to 100 participants on Sundays, during which services were held again. In 1966 the facility became the property of the City Church Association of Hanover , as there was a great need for renovation that the parish could not meet. However, she retained a preferential right to use the oak cross castle.
In 1958 the Vahrenwalder church had an average of 200 visitors per service. In 1967 the parish took over a municipal kindergarten on a neighboring property. In 1975 another kindergarten was set up as a new building because a wooden facility burned down in 1973. In 2000 the parish had around 4,300 members, with a high proportion of older people. Between 1922 and 2007, 19 pastors worked for the church. There was a clothing store in the parish hall that accepted used clothing and passed it on to those in need.
See also
literature
- Church council of the parish Hannover-Vahrenwald (ed.): Festschrift of the Evangelical Lutheran parish of Vahrenwald on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the reconstruction of the church (1950–2000). Söftje, Seelze 2000.
- Wolfgang Puschmann (Ed.): Vahrenwalder Church. In: Hanover's churches. 140 churches in and around town . Ludwig-Harms-Haus, Hermannsburg 2005, ISBN 3-937301-35-6 , pp. 12-15.
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 23 ′ 44 ″ N , 9 ° 44 ′ 6 ″ E