Church of Saints Peter and Paul (also known as Petrikirche, German Petrikirche) is a Lutheran church in the center of St. Petersburg (Nevsky Prospect, 22-24). Divine services are held regularly on Sundays from 10:30 in German and Russian. The rector of the parish, pastor Michael Schwarzkopf, is also the head of the North-Western Provincial Elzer. Also in the building of the church is the office of the archbishop of the Union of the ELC.
By decree of December 26, 1727, Emperor Peter II gave the German
Lutheran community land in a deserted area near a large promising road
between the current Bolshaya and Malaya Konyushennaya streets. The site
was donated "for the construction of an evangelical church, a school and
a pastor's house." The church building was founded on June 29, 1728, the
day of the holy apostles Peter and Paul. On June 14 (25), 1730, on the
day of the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Augsburg
Confession, the church was solemnly consecrated in the name of the
Apostles Peter and Paul (subsequently, the name of St. Peter was more
often used in documents and everyday life). Stylistically, the new
church building belonged to the examples of Petrine baroque architecture
characteristic of St. Petersburg in the first third of the 18th century.
The building was made of brick, had a wooden turret and accommodated
1,500 people (about a thousand below and five hundred in the choirs).
The magnificent Baroque altar was decorated with gilded sculpture
and four paintings: The Last Supper, The Transfiguration of the Lord,
The Resurrection of Christ and Jesus with Thomas the Unbeliever (The
Appearance of Christ to Thomas and Other Disciples). The latter work has
traditionally been attributed to the famous 16th-century German painter
Hans Holbein. In the church interior there were also paintings depicting
the apostles, made by the St. Petersburg Swiss painter Georg Gsell. On
December 27, 1737, a solemn consecration of the organ made by master I.
G. Joachim from Mitava took place. The temple received its final
interior and exterior decoration in 1738, ten years after the laying.
In 1735, two wooden houses were built in front of the church
building, where the apartments of church servants and a school were
located. In 1740, by order of the "Commission on the St. Petersburg
Building", all wooden buildings overlooking Nevsky Prospekt, the main
street of the city, were demolished, including two houses that belonged
to St. Peter's Church. In their place, between 1747 and 1752, according
to the project of the architect I. G. Kempf, new stone buildings were
built.
In 1762, on a plot that belonged to the Lutheran
community, behind the church, a two-story building of the Petrishule
Lutheran school was built, which subsequently survived many rebuildings,
but has survived to this day.
In early 1832, when the church building fell into disrepair, the
community announced a competition to design a new church. The project of
Alexander Bryullov, brother of the famous artist Karl Bryullov, was
recognized as the best of the seven submitted works. In his project, the
architect used the motifs of Romanesque architecture combined with the
techniques of Russian classicism.
In 1830-1832, the architect E.
T. Zollikofer rebuilt both corner houses that belonged to the community.
In place of the old buildings, three-story stone houses in the style of
classicism appeared (later built on).
The old church building was
demolished in the summer of 1833, and on August 21 a new one was laid.
The construction of the temple was basically completed in three years.
In 1836-1838, finishing work was carried out.
The foreman of the
church, watchmaker Johann August Ditmar made a clock - a sun clock for
the western (left) tower and a mechanical clock with a strike for the
eastern (right). The copper dials of both watches were made by the
bronze craftsman Tegelstein. The boards themselves were painted black,
while the numbers, arrows and bronze ornaments were gilded. The striking
clock mechanism was mounted in a special glazed ash case and was
preserved until the middle of the 20th century.
In front of the
church, marble figures of the apostles Peter and Paul were installed -
copies of sculptures by the famous Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen,
created by the Italian master Triscorni. On the arcades of the loggia,
four high reliefs with images of the evangelists were placed, made of
cement mass by the sculptor T. N. Jacques. The sculptural decoration of
the front facade was completed by the figure of a kneeling angel with a
cross, placed above the attic between the towers. The sculpture was
carved from sandstone by sculptor I. German.
The altar of the
church was decorated with a large painting by Karl Bryullov depicting a
crucifixion. In the lower part of the altar there was a canvas by
Holbein Jr. “Jesus with Thomas the Unbeliever” (the only picture taken
from the altar of the former church), and on both sides there were round
images of Saints Peter and Paul, also Bryullov’s creations. The painter
I. Drollinger painted the walls. The sculptor P. Cretan was responsible
for the carvings, creating the wooden frame for the altarpiece and the
preaching pulpit. The pulpit was carved from oak and was shaped like an
octagonal open box supported by the figures of the four evangelists.
On the day of the Reformation, October 31, 1838, the new church was
consecrated.
In 1840, a large organ by the Walker firm
(Ludwigsburg, Kingdom of Württemberg) was installed in the temple. In
1851, oak doors were installed in the central portal, and the open porch
turned into a vestibule. The carved doors were made according to the
drawing of the architect Ya.K. Hofer (or G.A. Bosse).
In 1863,
bells made in Bochum (Westphalia) appeared in the western tower of the
church.
In 1864, the church was donated 2 stained-glass windows
based on the well-known works by A. Dürer “St. Peter and St. John" and
"St. Mark and St. Paul". Initially, stained glass windows were located
on the sides of the organ. Later, in 1866, at the request of the donors,
they were moved down, decorating the two windows closest to the main
entrance. Stained-glass windows “Moses in the Desert with a Serpent” and
“Jesus on the Mount of Olives” appeared on the vacant seats near the
organ. In the same year, 1866, the church received another stained-glass
window as a gift, this time on the plot “Jesus preaching to the
disciples”. This stained glass window occupied the middle part of the
side arched window opening on the side of the pulpit. Finally, in 1871,
a stained-glass window appeared opposite with the image of the Holy
Family and a shepherd kneeling before Christ.
Meanwhile, the church building fell into disrepair, as the too soft
ground and the difference in pressure on it led to the precipitation of
the walls and the appearance of cracks in them. In 1881, the church
council asked for help from Professor R. B. Bernhard, a well-known
expert in church building technology. He was one of the first to develop
a method of mathematical calculation of the stability of church
buildings. In the summer of 1883, Bernhard partially corrected the
situation with the help of steel puffs (which are still clearly visible
in the interior of the building), and over time, the condition of the
structure stabilized. During the same period, the wooden roof rafters
were replaced by metal trusses.
In 1895-1897, the interior of the
church was radically changed according to the project of Professor
Maximilian Messmacher, the largest architect of the late 19th century,
the leading representative of late historicism architecture. Mesmacher
saw the purpose of the reconstruction in bringing the elements of the
interior to a certain stylistic unity (“... the interior of the church
should have been decorated more uniformly, while the Renaissance and
Greek motifs should have received free and equal expression”). According
to Messmacher's project, a new painting of the walls and vaults was
created: all the architectural elements of the interior were divided
into separate geometrically regular sections-panels and saturated with
decor to the maximum. In addition, two side entrances were arranged
along the sides of the main entrance to the church hall, electric
lighting was installed, carved oak railings appeared on all tiers of
galleries instead of cast iron railings, and organ choirs were expanded.
In 1910-1911, both buildings, which belonged to the church and faced
Nevsky Prospekt, were built on two floors. The superstructure was
designed by the architect W. E. Collins. He kept the three-story
buildings in their original form, and repeated the same pattern of
windows, sandriks and balconies, friezes, cornices and attics in the
built-on floors.
After the October Revolution, many parishioners of the church
emigrated from Petrograd/Leningrad. Despite the reduction in the size of
the community and harassment by the authorities, Petrikirche worked
longer than other Lutheran churches in the city, but at the end of 1937
it was also closed.
In the same year, 1937, pastors Paul and
Bruno Reichert were arrested and shot in 1938.
In 1938, after the
closure of Petrikirche as a "cult building", the former church was used
to display the "North Pole" panorama. Since 1939, the warehouse of the
Lengosestrada Theater was located here, in 1941-1945 military units were
located. The building increasingly lost its artistic decoration and fell
into disrepair.
Some items of decoration that were of artistic
value were confiscated and transferred to museums. The altar painting
"The Crucifixion" by Karl Bryullov is still in the Russian Museum (in
2007, a small copy of the painting appeared in the church hall). The
stained-glass windows ended up in the storerooms of the State Hermitage
(they are currently being restored). Part of the valuable property
irretrievably disappeared. The Walker organ was lost.
After the
end of the war, the heavily damaged building housed various warehouses -
from theatrical scenery to vegetables. In 1958, the reconstruction of
the building for the swimming pool of the Baltic Shipping Company began.
The author of the project was the architect A.P. Izoitko. During this
restructuring, the layout was changed, the interior was completely
redone. A 25-meter-long reinforced concrete bath was built in the
central nave, jumping towers were placed in the altar part, and stands
for 800 seats were placed on three sides of the hall. The grand opening
of the pool took place in 1963.
In 1993, the church building was returned to believers. The outside
of the building is generally well preserved. Much more serious was the
situation with the interior of the church. Firstly, the entire lower
part of the church hall was occupied by the concrete bowl of the pool.
Secondly, the difference in pressure on the ground led to uneven
settlement of the walls of the building and the formation of cracks,
aggravated by the construction of the pool. Thirdly, during the
reconstruction of the 1990s, the historical system of brick vaulted
ceilings was violated, which led to the appearance of cracks with an
opening of up to 10 mm.
The architectural concept was developed
by the working union of Sabina and Fritz Wenzel on behalf of the Bank
for Reconstruction and Development in Frankfurt in agreement with the
Ministry of the Interior of the Federal Republic of Germany. On the
spot, the plan was implemented by the head of the ELC restoration
department I. Sharapan. However, during the reconstruction carried out
in the 1990s, the systems of unique brick vaults were violated. In the
body of the so-called reverse vaults, holes of large diameter were
punched for the passage of metal columns of the new ceiling. This
circumstance greatly complicates the task of bringing the architectural
appearance of the church to the historical one.
The new floor is
located 4 meters higher than the previous one, under it there is still a
pool bowl. It is not possible to remove it without conducting
comprehensive surveys and developing a project for strengthening
structures. The decrease in the height of the hall is very noticeable,
because of this the acoustics are spoiled, now we have to use
microphones.
On September 30, 1999, a bronze bust of Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe by the famous St. Petersburg sculptor Levon Lazarev
was unveiled in the church courtyard to the right of the main facade.
The opening was timed to the 250th anniversary of the birth of the great
German poet and thinker. The sculptural portrait is made on the basis of
Goethe's death mask from the museum in Weimar.
In 2016, restoration work began, the purpose of which is to
completely return the southern facade of the church to its historical
appearance.
The first stage was the restoration of the sculpture
of an angel with a cross crowning the facade of the temple. The work,
which began in June 2016, included the restoration of the sculpture
itself and the attic, the reconstruction of the cross and volutes. The
restoration was carried out at the expense of the budget of St.
Petersburg within the framework of the program of the Committee for
State Control, Use and Protection of Historical and Cultural Monuments
(KGIOP) and was timed to coincide with the 500th anniversary of the
Reformation. On October 31, 2016, the grand opening of the sculpture
after restoration took place. The cross, lost in the 1950s, was
recreated according to historical documents: it is made of oak and
sheathed with gold-colored copper plates. Specialists installed
600-kilogram volutes made of natural stone on the attic, which had been
absent for many decades “as superfluous details”. In addition, the
bronze letters of the inscription “St. Petri" with replacement of lost
gilding.
The next stage in the restoration of the historical
appearance of the cathedral was the restoration of the facades of the
building, carried out in 2018-2019. This restoration was also carried
out at the expense of the budget of St. Petersburg under the KGIOP
program. For nine months (April-December) of 2018, specialists completed
the restoration of the basement of the building, the plastering of the
facades, the stucco decoration of openings and bas-reliefs in the
tympanums of the gallery, cast iron elements, metal lanterns, window and
door opening fillings. The historical fences of the porches were
recreated, the doors of the central portal were restored. The carved
cross returned to the glazed transom of the doors. In the summer of
2019, the statues of the apostles Peter and Paul were put on display in
front of the main entrance to the building. Solemn events on the
occasion of the completion of the restoration work were held on December
17, 2019.
On September 14, 2019, a bronze bust of Johann
Sebastian Bach was inaugurated in front of the Petrikirche building. The
monument took its place opposite the bust of Goethe. The author of both
monuments is Levon Lazarev. The sculptor completed work on the statue of
the composer in 2004, shortly before his death. The installation of the
bust was organized by the St. Petersburg International Earlymusic
Festival with the support of the Delzell Foundation and the German
Consulate General in St. Petersburg.
On October 29, 2021, sun and
mechanical clocks lost in Soviet times were returned to the Petrikirche
towers. The watch was recreated based on archival materials. The clock
was solemnly consecrated on October 31, 2021 during the service on the
feast of the Reformation. The installation of the clock was the final
stage in the reconstruction of the historical appearance of the southern
facade of Petrikirche.
The German Lutheran community is older than the church building.
Lutheran Germans have inhabited St. Petersburg since its foundation.
Initially, they gathered for their prayer meetings in the house of
Vice-Admiral Cornelius Kruys - approximately at the place where the New
Hermitage is now located. Divine services then were led by pastor
Wilhelm Tolle. In 1709, a small wooden church was erected in the
courtyard of the Kruys house, in which both Lutheran Germans and
Reformed Dutch from all over the Admiralty Island, where the German
Quarter was located, gathered. The date of foundation of the community
is 1710. Over time, it became necessary to build a separate large church
building, which began in 1727 with the allocation of a site for its
construction. The first pastor of Petrikirche was Heinrich Nazius
(1687-1751). On June 25, 1730, Pastor Heinrich celebrated a solemn
service in the building of a wooden church in honor of the anniversary
of the Augsburg Confession.
In 1760-1762 a new church school
building was built. The reign of Catherine II, who favored her German
compatriots, had a very good effect on the life of the community. The
empress made donations to the church treasury and took the school under
her protection. By 1794, there were 2,000 communicants in the Lutheran
community of Petrikirche.
In 1820, an educational home for
orphans from among the parishioners was opened at the church. From 1833
to 1838, the parish met for services in the building of the Finnish
Lutheran Church. After the construction of a new church building, it
housed the General Consistory of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of
Russia. In 1841, an educational home for orphaned girls was established
at the church, and in 1843, the Society for the Guardianship of the
Poor. On special days in St. Peter's Church, joint services were held
for all Lutheran communities in St. Petersburg.
After the October
Revolution, many parishioners of St. Peter's Church emigrated from
Russia. There was a rapid decline in the size of the community. If in
1914 there were 16 thousand people in the parish, then by 1930 only 4
thousand. The church building and the rest of the property (2 houses and
2 wings next to the church, etc.) were nationalized. In 1932, Paul
Reichert became pastor, assisted by his son Bruno Reichert. They were
arrested in 1937 and shot the next year. In December 1937 the church was
closed.
In 1989, the Lutheran "German community" was recreated, which first
held its services in the Pushkin Church. The leaders of the German
community were A. Bittner (later chairman of the church council), J.
Levenstern, K. Sperling. On their initiative Josef Baronas comes from
Riga as a pastor once a month. In June 1990, the founding congress of
the community was held in Mayakovsky's library. In 1992, the German
parish of A. A. Bitner with pastor Lotikhius left Pushkin - Tsarskoye
Selo and gathered in the church of St. Anna on Kirochnaya Street, where
the Spartak cinema still operated.
On October 31, 1992, the first
divine service was held in the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul. The
building was officially returned to believers in June 1993, but the
building's reconstruction process dragged on until 1997, when it was
solemnly re-consecrated on September 16. The community of the church of
St. Anna moved to Petrikirche, as a result of which the name appeared:
“community of St. Anna and St. Peter."
By 2003, the cathedral
community (German: Deutschen evangelisch-lutherischen St.-Annen- und
St.-Petri-Gemeinde) consisted of 700 parishioners, and in 2013 - 650.
The parish has Bible seminars, handicraft circles, a “clothes room”,
“diaconia” (patronage of the elderly members of the parish), a community
council, and a council of seniors. The community organizes charity
concerts, tours of the church building and the Catacombs.
During
a visit to the Catacombs, you can see the pool bowl, the basement
surrounding it with the bases of granite pylons at the level of the old
church hall, as well as the murals with Christian symbols, made in 2007
by the American neo-expressionist artist Matt Lamb in collaboration with
students Petersburg art schools. Under the altar, in the crypt, there is
a chapel designed by the Russian German artist Adam Schmidt. These wall
paintings, also created in 2007, are dedicated to the fate of the
Germans in Stalin's Russia and include six episodes (the deposition of
the cross from the church, arrest at the apartment, expulsion by
confinement, logging (“labour army”), secret worship (communion) of the
fraternal community on home, labor camp in Vorkuta). Thus, the basement
of Petrikirche is not only a kind of art space, but also a memorial to
the victims of repression. On certain days, services and hours of prayer
are held in the Catacombs. The bowl of the old pool periodically serves
as a decoration for various theatrical performances. Often exhibitions
are held in the Catacombs.
On October 31, 2019, the official
opening of the updated permanent exhibition dedicated to Petrikirche
took place in the cathedral. The exposition is located on the first
floor, in the left wing of the church. In addition to stands telling
about the history of the community and the building from the moment of
construction to the present day, the exposition presents a variety of
artifacts, including old liturgical books, utensils and reproductions of
Petrikirche stained-glass windows, now stored in the Hermitage
storerooms. Of great interest are two bronze models (one depicts the
prospectus of the lost Walcker organ, the other is the Petrikirche
building, modeled after the 1867 model kept in the Museum of the Russian
Academy of Arts).
In 1993, the third floor of the administrative
(rear) part of the building was equipped to create the Russian-German
Meeting Center (drb), whose task is to revive and develop the cultural
heritage of Russian Germans and conduct a dialogue between Germans and
representatives of other nationalities. The meeting center conducts
German language courses, organizes youth exchanges, vacation programs,
summer linguistic camps. In the summer of 2020, the Russian-German
Meeting Center moved from Petrikirche to the building located to the
right of the church at Nevsky 22. The Theological Seminary of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Russia now operates in the annex to the
church where the Center was previously located.
In 1997-1998, a small organ of the German company G. Steinmann", Opus
249, which has 10 registers, 2 manuals and a pedal. The instrument was
built in 1958 and was originally located at the Church Conservatory in
Herford, Germany.
In April 2017, an organ of the German company
"Willi Peter" from the Stockholm Church of St. Gertrude was transported
to Petrikirche - a large instrument with 43 registers, three manuals and
a pedal. On June 1 of the same year, work on its installation and
intonation was completed by specialists from the Rudolf von Beckerath
company. The first concert of the organ took place on July 1, 2017.
The solemn consecration of the Willi Peter organ with the
participation of representatives of the government of St. Petersburg and
the Federal Republic of Germany, as well as representatives of the
Nordkirche association (Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany)
took place on September 28, 2017.
The organs of the church are
regularly played at worship services and concerts.
1735-1762 - Friedrich Gottlob Wilde (German: Friedrich Gottlob Wilde,
?-1762)
1762-1813 - Johann Konrad Haas (? -1813)
1813-1831 - Otto
Leopold Cherlitsky (Otto Leopold Czerlitzki, ?-1831)
1831-1840 - Otto
Ferdinand Cherlitsky (Otto Ferdinand Czerlitzki / Tscherlizki,
1810-1849)
1840-1854 - Heinrich (Andrey Andreevich) Behling (Heinrich
August Behling, 1793-1854)
1854-1866 - Heinrich Franz Daniel Stiehl
(1829-1886)
1867-1870 - Gustav Adolf Thomas (1842-1870)
1870-1908
- Ludwig Friedrichovich [Louis Fedorovich] Gomilius (Ludwig Homilius,
1845-1908)
1909-1915 - Otto Wissig (1886-1970)
1915-1920 - Jacques
Samuel [Yakov Yakovlevich] Handschin (Handschin, 1886-1955)
1920-1937
- Wolf Oscar [Wolf Fedorovich] Liss (Wolf Oscar Liess, 1894-1938)
1998-2003 - Grigory Vladimirovich Varshavsky (born 1956)
2003-2008 -
Stanislav Alexandrovich Kochanovsky
2008-2010 - Olga Nikolaevna
Chumikova (born 1984)
2010-2012 - Andrey Vladimirovich Kolomiytsev
(born 1976)
since 2008 - Sergey Alexandrovich Silaevsky (born 1983)
1710-1751 - Heinrich Gottlieb Nazzius (German: Heinrich Gottlieb
Nazzius, 1687-1751)
1732-1740 - Johann Friedrich Severin (German
Johann Friedrich Severin, 1699-1740)
1740-1766 - Ludolf Otto Trefurt
(1700-1766)
1752-1754 - Nicolaus Bützow (German: Nicolaus Bützow)
(1707-1754)
1754-1758 - Caspar Friedrich Lange (1722-1758)
1758-1760 - Johann Wilhelm Zuckmantel (1712-1760)
1761-1765 - Anton
Friedrich Büsching (1724-1793)
1769-1782 - Jacob Martin Herold
(1737-1782)
1801-1834 - Hieronymus Heinrich Hamelmann (1773-1845)
1813-1839 - Johann Friedrich August Volbort (1768-1840)
1834-1865 -
Gustav Reinhold Robert Taubenheim (1795-1865)
1839-1865 - Georg Karl
Ludwig Gottlieb Froman (1809-1879)
1860-1884 - Franz Heinrich Julius
Stieren (1813-1884)
1865-1902 - Alexander Wilhelm Ferman (1835-1916)
1866-1900 - Otto Armin Findeisen (1831-1903)
1885-1913 - Gottlieb
August von Keusler (1844-1913)
1924-1929 - Helmut Hansen
1929-1932
- Heinrich Berendts
1933-1937 - Paul Reichert (1875-1938)
1991-1995 - Frank Lotichius (German: Frank Lotichius)
1995 - Herwig
Schmidtpott
1995-1999 - Heinz Kitzka (German: Heinz Kitzka)
1999-2002 - Christoph Ericht
2002-2008 - Hans Hermann Achenbach
(German: Hans Hermann Achenbach)
2008-2013 - Matthias Zierold (German
Matthias Zierold)
since 2013 — Michael Schwarzkopf