Church in Kladrum: A Medieval Fieldstone Parish Church in Germany
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page15 sections
History
The Church in Kladrum is a medieval fieldstone church in Germany, probably built during the second half of the thirteenth century or, possibly, the first half of the fourteenth century. It stands in the former farming village of Kladrum, whose medieval connections included the Dobbertin Monastery, which received income and rents from the village in 1360 and 1367.
Medieval parish and early records
The church first enters the written record through its clergy. In 1406, Dyderik Hovemann was named as pastor. The parish later included chapels at Badegow and Grabow, linking the church with surrounding settlements and their religious administration.
The church was apparently dedicated to the Apostle Matthew and Saint Mary. Its exact foundation date and the circumstances of its construction remain unknown, since no charter or other record states when the building was erected. In 1534, Duke Albrecht VII appointed Berthold Trampe of Kladrum as pastor and confirmed his income through the bailiff of Lübz. This reference places the church within the ecclesiastical and administrative structures of sixteenth-century Mecklenburg.
War, reconstruction, and changing patronage
The Thirty Years’ War, the major European conflict fought mainly between 1618 and 1648, caused extensive destruction in the German lands. In 1649, the Church in Kladrum had been destroyed except for its surrounding walls. Reconstruction began in 1667, using material from the chapel at Hof Grabow, where services had ended in 1633.
The bell frame carries the date “ANNO 1698,” which may indicate that the tower was renewed after the wartime destruction. The tower cap dates from 1696 and was renewed in 1708 after a lightning strike. These works formed part of the rebuilding and adaptation of the church during the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. A change of patronage followed in 1752 after the Lübz and Crivitz administrative districts were merged.
Parish administration and modern repairs
From 1849 to 1866, and again from 1908, the Kladrum parish also administered the congregations of Wessin and Bülow. Pastor Albert Wilhelm Kindler oversaw Wessin and Bülow without payment between 1849 and 1866. The rectory was extended and altered in 1885. The church interior later received smooth wall plaster, and heating was installed in 1907.
The church’s furnishings and fabric required repeated intervention during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Severe dry rot led to the removal of the old pews after 1970, with chairs used temporarily in their place. New pews were installed in 2007, and the interior was repainted in 2009. A spring storm in 2022 damaged the leaded diamond-glass windows on the north and south sides. Extensive work to secure and renovate the tower and nave began in June of that year.
The parish now belongs to the permanently united parishes of Mestlin, Techentin, and Kladrum, which together comprise nine village churches. It is part of the Parchim provostry in the Mecklenburg church district of the North Church, while the rectory is located in Mestlin.
Remains
The church is a simple medieval fieldstone building with walls made from locally collected stones arranged in horizontal courses. Its plain exterior is punctuated by pointed-arch windows, while the interior has a flat ceiling. A west tower gives the building a fortress-like character, and the eastern gable combines brickwork with a distinctive pattern of narrow pointed openings.
Nave, choir, and tower
Nave and eastern end
The main body of the church retains the straightforward form associated with Mecklenburg village churches. Fieldstone walls define the nave, and pointed-arch windows provide its principal exterior articulation. The lower choir has a pointed-arch window fitted with diamond glass. Above it, the upper eastern brick gable is decorated with seven pointed-arch lancet panels, narrow pointed-arch openings or blind panels that give the gable a more detailed finish than the surrounding walls.
The leaded diamond-glass windows on the north and south sides were damaged by a spring storm in 2022. Their repair formed part of the subsequent securing and renovation work affecting the nave and tower.
West tower and bell chamber
The west tower is a recessed square structure of two storeys. Its tapering octagonal tower helmet supports a shingled cap shaped like a pear or onion. The cap dates from 1696 and was covered with copper after its renewal in 1708, following a lightning strike. The finial was copper-clad in 1930, but the copper was removed for wartime use in 1943. Roofing felt then provided a temporary covering, renewed in 1956, and after 1990 the cap was covered again with Finnish wooden shingles.
The tower also preserves evidence of changing timekeeping arrangements. Collections for a tower clock began in 1794, but the purchase was postponed because an organ was judged more important. A clock was finally installed in 1857 and maintained until 1893, after which it was considered beyond repair. A new mechanism from the J. F. Weule tower-clock factory and bell foundry at Bockenem was installed in 1913.
Before the Second World War, three bells hung in the tower. The largest and smallest had been cast in 1470, while the middle bell dated from 1468. One bell was recast after developing a crack measuring 50 centimetres. On 13 February 1943, two bells were removed and melted down for wartime use. The smallest bell from 1470 survived; its inscription invokes the greeting “Hail, Mary, full of thanks, God with you.”
Two new cast-iron bells from the Apolda bell foundry have hung in the tower since 1957. The larger carries the words “Land, land, land, hear the word of the Lord,” while the smaller bears the inscription “The word of our God endures forever.” The bell-ringing machine was installed in 1913, and a supporting-beam stand was renewed in 1907.
Interior furnishings and artwork
Pulpit altar and medieval altarpiece
At the east end stands a pulpit altar made in 1752 by Johann Andreas Klinckmann, a Rostock sculptor known for ecclesiastical woodcarving. A pulpit altar combines the altar and preaching pulpit within one architectural composition. The Kladrum example contains finely carved figures. Klinckmann had previously made a pulpit altar for the nuns’ gallery in Dobbertin Abbey Church in 1746.
A medieval altarpiece retains two carved upper figures, Christ and Mary, taken from an older Gothic triptych. This type of triptych is a three-part altarpiece, usually formed from a central panel and hinged wings. The surviving figures belonged to a representation of the Coronation of Mary. The lower figures of the Apostles Paul and Peter are missing.
Font and painted gallery panels
The wooden baptismal font was made at the end of the eighteenth century. Its copper bowl carries the inscription, “Donated to the Church of Kladrum by Maria Carstens, née Führhop, AD 1952.” On the front of the western organ gallery, painted panels show the apostles Matthew, Jude Thaddeus, Thomas, James the Younger, John, Peter, James the Elder, Philip, Simon the Cananaean, and Bartholomew, together with Jesus.
Patronage pews
The former patronage pews displayed painted coats of arms belonging to the von Barner and von Lützow families. Magnus Friedrich von Barner, hereditary lord of Bülow, Klein Görnow, and Badegow, served as provisional administrator of Dobbertin Monastery from 1691 to 1694. His wife was Margaretha Elisabeth von Lützow of Seedorf.
Organ and musical history
The nineteenth-century organ
The first organ described for the church was built in 1847 by Johann Heinrich Runge of Hagenow. It stood on the west gallery and had one manual, a mechanical slider chest, eight stops, and a pedal. A slider chest is the part of an organ that mechanically opens or closes air channels for individual groups of pipes, while a stop is a set of pipes producing a particular tone. Runge’s instrument was repaired in 1853 and again in 1913.
By the end of 1945, the organ had been destroyed apart from its blower. In 1950, Leopold Nitschmann restored it to playing condition by replacing many destroyed pipes with parts from the churches of Mestlin, Dobbertin, and Grebbin. Further pipe losses made the instrument completely unusable in 1980.
The replacement organ
A replacement organ was dedicated on 13 October 2013 by retired regional bishop Hermann Beste. Werner Bosch Orgelbau built the instrument in 1966 at Sandhausen near Kassel. Organ builder Andreas Arnold of Mecklenburger Orgelbau in Plau am See installed it in Kladrum.
The organ had originally been donated for the village church at Below and was lent to Kladrum because the Below instrument remained playable. It has five stops distributed between two manuals and a pedal, with 246 pipes. Its manual stops include Gedackt, Principal, Rohrflöte, and Gemshorn, while the pedal has a Sordun stop. The couplers are II/I, I/Pedal, and II/Pedal. The instrument has a Ramin slider chest with telescopic sleeves and an integrated regulator, together with mechanical key and stop actions. Its attached console and enclosed case are oak on the outside and pearwood inside. The first organist was Fritz Abs, cantor of St. George’s Church in Parchim.
