Tabor Church (german: Taborkirche) is the church of the

Evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...

Tabor Congregation Tabor may refer to: Places Czech Republic * Tábor, a town in the South Bohemian Region ** Tábor District, the surrounding district * Tábor, a village and part of Velké Heraltice in the Moravian-Silesian Region Israel * Mount Tabor, Galilee, ...

, a member of the

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

umbrella organisation Evangelical Church of Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia. The church building is located in

Wrangelkiez Wrangelkiez, originally known as ''Schlesisches Viertel'', is a Kiez (small neighbourhood) in the Kreuzberg quarter of Berlin, Germany. Wrangelkiez is centrally located within the borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg bordering the Spree river. The po ...

in the

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg. The church was named in memory of the

Transfiguration of Jesus In the New Testament, the Transfiguration of Jesus is an event where Jesus is transfigured and becomes radiant in glory upon a mountain. The Synoptic Gospels (, , ) describe it, and the Second Epistle of Peter also refers to it (). In these a ...

, which allegedly took place on Mount Tabor הר תבור in today's

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

The parish's district belonged to the Congregation of

Emmaus Church Emmaus (; Greek: Ἐμμαούς, ''Emmaous''; la, Emmaus; , ''Emmaom''; ar, عمواس, ''ʻImwas'') is a town mentioned in the Gospel of Luke of the New Testament. Luke reports that Jesus appeared, after his death and resurrection, before tw ...

(part of today's Emmaus-Mount of Olives Congregation). Due to the high number of parishioners the district was divided into subsections by 1904, which were provided their own prayer halls. The future Tabor parish then used to be called ''Emmaus North''.

The Church Building

On 1 June 1903 the cornerstone for Tabor Church was laid. Baurat Ernst Schwartzkopff designed the plans. The church is inserted into the alignment of houses in Taborstraße, but facing Wrangelstraße, a long street directed northwest starting opposite of the church façade. The tower of originally 71 m height was built to be a landmark viewable through all of Wrangelstraße. Due to the position of the site inserted between neighbouring houses the quire of the church is not properly

oriented In mathematics, orientability is a property of some topological spaces such as real vector spaces, Euclidean spaces, surfaces, and more generally manifolds that allows a consistent definition of "clockwise" and "counterclockwise". A space is ...

, but directed to the southeast.Since baroque times church buildings are often not build according to the biblical tradition of orientation. Haupteingang Taborkirche

Schwartzkopff died before finishing his work and thus Baurat Adolph Bürkner accomplished the constructions. The ''Evangelischer Kirchenbauverein'' ( en, Evangelical Association for the Construction of Churches), a charitable organisation then headed by Empress

Augusta Victoria , house = Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg , father = Frederick VIII, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein , mother = Princess Adelheid of Hohenlohe-Langenburg , birth_date = , birth_place = Dolzig Palace ...

, financed the constructions. The church was inaugurated on 20 December 1905. In 1906 the parish subsection ''Emmaus North'' was legally established as the parish ''Tabor Congregation'', becoming the proprietor of Tabor Church. The church is built from red brick stones in anachronistic neo-Brick Gothic style. A trass statue of

Jesus of Nazareth Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

by Julius Wucherer (a 1905-copy after

Bertel Thorvaldsen Bertel Thorvaldsen (; 19 November 1770 – 24 March 1844) was a Danes, Danish and Icelanders, Icelandic Sculpture, sculptor medallist, medalist of international fame, who spent most of his life (1797–1838) in Italy. Thorvaldsen was born in ...

) stands on top of the entrance portal. The street section of the building includes apartments. The prayer hall is built as a centralized auditory hall, typical for Protestant church architecture. The prayer hall is topped by a central stellar vault with a skylight. The church weathered the Second World War with little damage. But the high conic spire of the tower had been shortened after considerable damage. The remaining stump consists of the massive brick stone construction of the lower parts of the tower.

Furnishings as of 1905

Wall paintings with scenes from birth and resurrection of Jesus by ''Birkle & Thomer'', mosaic tympana at the portals by A. Becker.

The Cemetery of Tabor Congregation in formerly East German Ahrensfelde

Tabor Congregation, located in what used to be

West Berlin West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...

, has its own graveyard section in the denominational ''Eastern Churchyard'' (german: Ostkirchhof Ahrensfelde) in formerly East Berlin's eastern suburb of

Ahrensfelde Ahrensfelde is a municipality in the district of Barnim, in Brandenburg, Germany. It is situated on the Barnim Plateau at the city limits of Berlin, about northeast of the city centre. The municipal area comprises the villages of Ahrensfelde, Blum ...

. Between May 27, 1952 and 3 October 1972 West Berliners were banned from free access to the East German

German Democratic Republic German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

proper - as distinguished from

East Berlin East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...

. In this time all West Berliners, wishing to visit the grave of a late relative or friend in the cemeteries in East Germany, were excluded, as well as late widows and widowers, who wanted to be buried side by side with their earlier deceased spouses buried there. Between 1972 and December 22, 1989 West Berliners had restricted access, because they had to apply for East German visas and to pay for a compulsory exchange (officially in german: Mindestumtausch, i.e. ''minimum exchange'').

Notes

References

* ''Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler /

Georg Dehio Georg Gottfried Julius Dehio (22 November 1850 in Reval (now Tallinn), Governorate of Estonia, Russian Empire – 21 March 1932 in Tübingen), was a Baltic German art historian. In 1900, Dehio started the "''Handbuch der deutschen Kunstgesch ...

'': 22 vols., new ed. by Dehio-Vereinigung, Berlin and Munich:

Deutscher Kunstverlag The Deutscher Kunstverlag (DKV) is an educational publishing house with offices in Berlin and Munich. The publisher specializes in books about art, cultural history, architecture, and historic preservation. History Deutscher Kunstverlag was fo ...

, 2000, vol. 8: Berlin, p. 247. . * Günther Kühne and Elisabeth Stephani, ''Evangelische Kirchen in Berlin'', 2nd ed., Berlin: CZV-Verlag, 1986, p. 75. .

External links

Tabor Congregation (official website)

Entry in Berlin's list of monuments with further sources
{{Authority control 20th-century Protestant churches United Protestant church buildings in Berlin Religious buildings and structures in Berlin Heritage sites in Berlin Buildings and structures in Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg Churches completed in 1905 1905 establishments in Germany