Church buildings belong to many localities. They are known as landmarks, town centers or landmarks. The places of worship have a wide variety of architectural, art-historical and regional-historical significance. But their future is threatened: dozens of them have lost their function, some have already disappeared from the townscape without a trace. Time to commemorate disappeared churches outside of Central Germany – and what has been irrevocably lost with them.
The St. Philip Apostle Church was the evangelical church in Berlin-Mitte on Philippstrasse, a side street off Hannoversche Strasse. The church, named after the apostle Philip, was completed in 1852. Damaged in bombing raids during World War II, it was blown up almost 20 years later in 1964 due to political pressure.
Story
The community was created in 1856 from the former Sophiengemeinde. In that year, with the expansion of Friedrich-Wilhelm-Stadt (to the west of Friedrichstraße), two out-of-parish parishes had become necessary – i.e. spin-offs of new parishes from a mother parish that had become too large in terms of the number of people: These were the St. Philippus-Apostel parish and the St. John Evangelist Church.
Further details about the church, its furnishings and certainly lively community life in the following decades cannot be found on the Internet.
World War II and after
During the Second World War, the church was badly damaged in bombing raids on Berlin. The place of worship regularly served generations of Berliners for prayer and at Easter, Pentecost and Christmas as a place of festive encounters. It was a familiar, homely meeting place for baptisms and confirmations, for weddings, silver and golden weddings and for the passing of hundreds of Protestant Christians. It was a place of community for devotion and hope, for confidence and joy, for sadness and suffering.
The congregation, like other congregations with the same fate, naturally wanted their church to be rebuilt.
But that remained a pious wish: the church was blown up in 1964 – according to tradition, due to political pressure: the GDR, with its state atheism of the SED, used its political power to blow up dozens of churches that could be rebuilt nationwide.
The disputes between the parish and the city administration of East Berlin and the attempts to save and preserve the sacred building that had taken place in the almost two decades previously cannot be deduced from the online sources.
Recent past and present
After the church was blown up, the congregation was forced to rent commercial premises as a place of refuge for their congregational life. In 1999 the Philippus-Apostel-Gemeinde became part of the Sophien-Kirchengemeinde.
The cemetery of St. Philippus Apostel, which belongs to the church, has survived to this day: Located on Müllerstraße in Berlin-Wedding, it is about 550 meters long, 60 meters wide and has a continuous avenue. The first burial took place on July 5, 1859. The cemetery chapel was built around 1878, the gravedigger’s house (= administration building) at the main entrance around 1867.
There is no public memory of the church.
Coordinates: 52° 31′ 36.6″ N, 13° 22′ 53.1″ W
Sources and links:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippus-Apostel-Kirche_(Berlin)
https://web.archive.org/web/20120305141854mp_/http://www.kkbs.de/1030203/
