Tour of the Church - english
St. Paul-Apostle Church was the first of four churches built in Berlin by the royal construction official Franz Schwechten. The church came through the bombing of World War II relatively undamaged. Furthermore it was not severely altered after the war. So the church still looks much as the architect originally planned it.
The Church Entrance
We enter the church from Grunewaldstraße through the main portal. At its gable a cross with an angel's head is placed. The wrought-iron security grates in front of the glass door were manufactured by the royal artist blacksmith Paul Marcus from Berlin. In the entrance hall two framed prints commemorate the laying of the foundation stone in 1892 and the inauguration of the church in 1894. Walking over a stone mosaic floor made from Mettlach tiles we enter the church's nave. At the right-hand side next to the door we find an inscription with the most important dates of the church’s history. The left of the entrance door is where the triumphal cross is now located. Previously it was placed on a column behind the altar. The cross is designed as the Tree of Life thus combining the meanings of Good Friday and Easter. At its former location the dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit, was seen as descending onto the leader of the service in front of the altar and the assembled congregation.
To the left and right of the entrance are two rooms that are used as a meeting room and as the church’s café respectively.
The tour around the church starts in the left side-chapel. At the paper model of the church we can notice its cruciform floor plan. On the walls is an exhibition showing the history of the church and the congregation. The finial and the other fragments originate from the old altar and once enclosed the mosaic of Jesus, which is now inserted in the choir’s wall behind the altar. The mosaic has probably been made by the famous studio Puhl & Wagner from Berlin-Rixdorf. The fragments were found beneath the staircase in front of the main entrance in the late 1980s during construction work. The altar table is made of two church bench ends.
The Nave
With its 1210 (originally 1500) seats, the St. Paul-Apostle Church is the biggest church in former West Berlin. But due to the flat choir vault and the curved gallery, the church seems to be smaller and more intimate than it really is, because the visitor’s view appears to be, through the architecture, redirected back to him or herself. Remarkable is the gracefully built gallery, the beautifully sculptured sandstone capitals with columns made of polished granite from Lago Maggiore and the varied carvings at the church benches. The richest decoration can be found at the walls and ceiling of the chancel. During a renovation in 1960/61, a new altar was redesigned according to the taste of the sixties although it also uses parts of the old altar. The baptismal font is made of the lower part of the old pulpit. A ring of 14 fishes decorates the font. The fish is an ancient Christian symbol for Jesus Christ, the Christians and the baptism. The lectern is made of wood from the old church benches.
The Frescoes
Lots of churches in Berlin were decorated with frescoes, but only in some of them has the ornamental painting been preserved. In St. Paul-Apostle Church they were painted by the stage painters Gathemann & Keller from Berlin-Charlottenburg. Between the spandrels above the windows in the choir's vault are five birds of symbolic meaning: a cock (watchfulness), a pelican which is feeding his squab with flesh from his own chest (altruism), a dove (presence of the Holy Spirit), a peacock (eternity) and a phoenix rising from the ashes (resurrection).
The keystone shows the Eye of God in a triple aureole. The birth of Jesus Christ (St.Luke 2:1-14) is depicted at the left side of the triumphal arch that separates the nave and the choir. The scene is related to the pulpit, because the Word was made flesh in the child of Bethlehem (St.John 1:14) and is made flesh again every Sunday in the sermon. On the opposite wall, and in association with the baptismal font, there is a painting of the baptism of Jesus (Mark 1:9-13). The frescoes are an interesting mix of Art Nouveau and Ottonian book illumination. On the walls of the transept gallery are four more scenes from the New Testament: left of the altar on the southern side is Jesus’ entry to Jerusalem (Matthew 21:1-11), at the opposite side, the vocation of the first disciples at the lake of Gennesaret (Luke 5:1-11); to right of the altar, the last supper (Luke 22:7-23), at the opposite side, the bearing of the cross to Calvary (Matthew 16:20-22). This fresco still bears damage caused in World War II. The angel's choir on the nave gallery is unique in Berlin. Seven of altogether twelve angels, singing and playing musical instruments, originate from the 19th century, the other five have been newly painted in 1960 by H. Siems.
The Windows
St. Paul-Apostle Church is the only church in Berlin that was able to preserve so many stained glass windows in a superior quality during the war. The windows were damaged, but basically survived in good condition and were restorable.
Both windows in the transept were donated by parishioners: by Louise Bergmann, the so-called millionaire farmer and by Johannes Lehmann, a brewery director, and his wife. The windows were crafted in Munich by Franz Mayer's Hofkunstanstalt, the righthand window based on a sketch by Prof. Paul Mohn of Berlin (1842-1911). The window above the left gallery shows the Conversion of St.Paul on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1-19).
The Trefoil windows above that scene in the past had showed the Christian virtues of hope (with an anchor), faith (with a bible) and love. Love as the greatest among them (1 Corinthians 13:13) was situated in the biggest window in the middle. But love fell victim to the war – what a symbolic turn of events!
The window above the right gallery shows the climax of Apostle Paul’s missionary activities: his great sermon at the Areopagus in the cultural capital of that time, Athens (Acts 17:16-34). In the Trefoil windows above the sermon, only the resurrection remained undamaged. The expulsion from paradise (right) and the crucifixion as well as the upper parts of the bodies of the figures on the right side behind St.Paul could be restored in 2000 thanks to a donation by the former vicar of the parish, Renate Maria Heydenreich.
The window on the left side of the nave was ordered by the parish to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Luther’s posting of the 95 theses on October 31st, 1917 and its completion was celebrated at the 25th anniversary of the inauguration of the church on December 29th, 1919. It was crafted by the Gottfried Heinersdorff studio for mosaic and glass painting in Berlin-Treptow based on the design of the parishioner Prof. Richard Böhland. It is the last in the row of the old windows, the window at the opposite side remained empty. The difference of style in comparison to the older windows is obvious, although they are only twenty years older. While the older windows are clearly in the tradition of the Nazarene painters, the new window is completely influenced by Rudolf Schäfer.
Among the witnesses of the posting of the 95 theses we can recognize the three vicars of the parish in 1919: Julius Rodatz, Johannes von Rauchstein and Max Braun (from center to the right). The architrave block for the posting of Luther’s theses shows the symbols of the four Evangelists, although Matthew’s angel has been transferred upwards to fill a gap there. For the same reason the beak and the wings of John’s eagle are located in the Aeropagus window. The quatrefoil window shows Luther's rose, the seal designed by Martin Luther as a symbolization of St. Paul’s Theology of the Cross and a proof of authenticity for his writings.
The new choir window from 1960/61 was designed by an artist from Berlin-Schöneberg, Alfred Kothe, and manufactured in the studio August Wagner in Berlin. Again it shows the Conversion of St.Paul on the way to Damascus. It is worth comparing these two windows. The design vocabulary differs, but the message is the same. The window was donated by the plenipotentiary of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany to the Federal Republic of Germany, Prelate Dr. Dr. Hermann Kunst.
The Organ
Since the old Sauer-organ was damaged during the war, the company C.F. Walcker & Co. in Ludwigsburg built a new one in 1964. The pedal board has three manuals and 38 sets of pipes.
R.M. Heydenreich und S. Suchan-Floß, translated by H. Williamson
Fotos: Michael König (1, 2, 3, 4) - Norbert Meise (5, 7) - Dirk Bartsch (6)
