Christ Church Detmold

The Evangelical Reformed Christ Church in Detmold on Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz is a neo-Gothic church that was consecrated on January 12, 1908 and was built according to a design by the architect Otto Kuhlmann.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the members of the Reformed town and country community of Detmolds totaled around 13,000 people. The parish church on the market square (today the Church of the Redeemer ) was the only church available to them, but it only had 1,300 seats. Although three services were held every Sunday, many visitors could not find a place. As early as 1886 there were initial plans to build a new church. Auguste von Donop , the widow of the Hofjägermeister von Donop, had left a will after her death in 1883, in which half of her assets were given to the Paulinenanstalt and the municipal poor fund and the other half to the princely consistorybequeathed to the building of a Protestant church. However, she had not decreed whether the Reformed or the Lutheran congregation should receive it for church building. After lengthy disputes, an agreement was finally reached between the two communities, according to which the legacy of around 58,000 marks was divided in half.

The next problem arose in the form of the location question. Initially, there were seven different building sites up for discussion, including the so-called Totenhof at Lemgoer Tor , on which the Weerth School is now located. In the end, an agreement was reached on the site at Kaiser-Wilhelm-Platz as the location of the new church. In the meantime, the Reformed community of Detmold had separated into a town and a rural community. According to the contract from 1903, the municipality was divided into two parishes and a second pastor was hired. The rural community kept the parish church on the market square, while the city community received the church building fund of 53,000 marks, which had meanwhile grown.

The township no longer had a church and pushed for the construction of the new church to begin soon. A first architectural competition was launched in 1895. In 1904, a limited number of architects were asked to submit designs. Finally, the church council decided on the design by the Detmold-born architect Otto Kuhlmann. Construction began on April 27, 1905 and the topping-out ceremony was celebrated on September 15, 1906 . The consecration of the new church took place on January 12, 1908 by General Superintendent Weßel.

During the Second World War , the Christ Church was damaged several times by bombs and grenades, for example on the roof, the masonry and the windows. A shell had penetrated the roof of the nave, but the vault below held up. However, penetrating rainwater caused further damage, especially in the wall and ceiling paintings. The first repairs were made in the post-war years of 1946 and 1947.

The neo-Gothic architectural style, windows, chandeliers and interior decoration no longer corresponded to the taste of the time and the population was increasingly critical of this. When the interior was renovated in 1961/1962, the church was given a completely new look. Little more than the outer shell remained of the church building by the architect Otto Kuhlmann. The removal of the damage to the outer masonry in 1983 caused high costs when many stone blocks had to be replaced or repaired. In 2008, the centenary of the Christ Church was celebrated with a series of events.

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