Johanneskirche: A Late Gothic Evangelical Church in Hoyerswerda
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.4
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Bohemia
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page8 sections
History
Johanneskirche is an evangelical church in Hoyerswerda, Germany, first mentioned in 1225 and built in the late Gothic period. Located in the center of the old town, it is regarded as one of the city’s oldest buildings. It is also known as the Wendische Kirche, or Wendish Church, a name referring to the use of Sorbian, a group of West Slavic languages traditionally spoken in eastern Germany, for preaching. This distinguished it from the neighboring former German Church.
Medieval and Reformation history
The church formed part of Hoyerswerda’s religious life during the late Middle Ages. A tower was probably added in the sixteenth century, as a bell formerly housed there carried the date 1526. Until 1540, an Easter-rider procession travelled to the town church.
On the feast day of John the Baptist in 1540, traditionally observed on 24 June, the former monk Basilius Laurentius conducted the first Protestant service in the then town church. This service made the Hoyerswerda estate, a noble territorial lordship, Protestant. The church later received the name Johanneskirche in reference to that event.
Alterations and wartime destruction
A small German church dating from the seventeenth century once stood in front of Johanneskirche. It was demolished in 1850. The tower’s appearance also changed during this period. Until 1851 it was crowned by a Welsch hood, a bulbous Baroque tower roof, and an onion dome. In 1851, the structure was replaced by a tall pointed tent roof with small pointed gables in the Neo-Gothic style.
On 19 April 1945, during the final phase of the Second World War, the tower was being used as an observation post by the Wehrmacht, the armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. A shell fired by Red Army forces positioned near Kühnicht and Bergen struck the tower. Parts of it fell into the nave, and the church burned down to its foundations.
Reconstruction and later preservation
Restoration began in 1951, and Johanneskirche returned to service on 6 October 1957. The tower was reconstructed in 1984 and 1985 on the model of its Baroque appearance rather than the Neo-Gothic form destroyed in 1945.
The church’s later history also includes the preservation and return of an earlier bell. A bronze bell cast for Johanneskirche in 1812 cracked in 1966 and was replaced by a tonally matching chilled-cast-iron bell made by Schilling & Lattermann. The damaged bronze bell was first sent to that foundry and later reached Magdeburg by an unexplained route. It stood among six bells at the Johanniskirchhof there until February 2025. Magdeburg’s city council approved its return to Hoyerswerda on 28 August 2025, and it was installed in Johanneskirche’s entrance hall on 14 September 2025.
Remains
Johanneskirche survives as a three-aisled late Gothic hall church, meaning that the nave and aisles are approximately equal in height and form a unified interior space. The church has a reduced ambulatory choir, a passage running around the outside of the choir, together with rendered walls, a semicircular choir termination, stepped buttresses, and tracery windows. Its gabled nave roof is supported by eight columns, one of which also carries the pulpit.
Church structure and tower
The west tower is set slightly within the church and rises from a square ground plan to an octagonal bell stage. It is 55 metres high. The tower arrangement created in 1851 was destroyed in the 1945 fire, while the reconstruction of 1984 and 1985 restored a Baroque appearance based on the earlier form.
Interior spaces
The sacristy is a small, cramped room to the left of the altar. The bell stage contains a peal of four chilled-cast-iron bells. The bronze bell cast in 1812 is now placed in the entrance hall following its return from Magdeburg, rather than being returned to the bell stage.
Organ
Johanneskirche’s organ was built by Hermann Eule Orgelbau of Bautzen and inaugurated during Advent in 1967. It has three manuals and a pedal, 26 stops, and mechanical slider chests, which are wind-chests operated by mechanical key action with sliding stop controls. Its resources include Quintade 16-foot, Principal 8-foot, Gemshorn 8-foot, Octave 4-foot, Wald Flute 2-foot, Sifflöte 1 1/3-foot, a four-rank Mixture, Rohrschalmey 8-foot, Gedackt Pommer 8-foot, Principal 4-foot, Block Flute 2-foot, a two-rank Sesquialtera, a two-rank Tonus fabri, Krummhorn 8-foot, Koppelflöte 8-foot, Rohr Flute 4-foot, Nasard 2 2/3-foot, Octave 2-foot, Glöcklein 1-foot, a three-rank sounding Cymbal, Subbass 16-foot, Metal Flute 8-foot, Octave 4-foot, a three-rank Choral Mixture, a three-rank Cornet, and Lieblich Posaune 16-foot, together with tremulants, a swell pedal, and couplers connecting the divisions and pedal.
Major repairs to the organ took place in 1992 and 2009. Plans announced in 2025 proposed repairing partly defective components and enlarging the instrument. The proposals include an electrically controlled swell division on the left side gallery, a fourth manual for the console, two electrically controlled 16-foot pedal stops on the right side gallery, and a Rückpositiv, a small organ division placed behind the organist and facing the congregation, on the parapet of the central gallery. The additional pedal stops would comprise a wooden Violon and a Bombarde with wooden resonators.
