Churches of Hamburg

For some reason Al loves to visit churches. He's not religious at all in the conventional sense, but he loves churches, so we go and see them wherever we go. Today did a bit of a church=tour, starting with the stark beauty of St Nikolai. This was a beautiful gothic-style Lutheran church that was destroyed by aerial bombing during the second world war. It has been left in its semi-demolished state as a memorial against the war. There was something very sad about walking through what would have been a beautiful building and beloved place of worship - the bare window frames at the end of what would have been the nave, and the spire and main entry, complete with heavy wooden doors which still stand at the other end of the huge church, pictured below.



Inside the building we found this eloquent memorial to the victims of the Third Reich. It's "The Ordeal" by Edith Breckwoldt and conveys a feeling of helpless, hopeless distress and regret.



The bricks it is set on were collected from the ruins of a concentration camp (by schoolchildren!!) and the plaque is enscribed with a quotation from Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

"No man in the whole world can change the truth. One can only look for the truth, find it and serve it. The truth is in all places."

(Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran minister who died at Flossenbürg Concentration Camp).

Next stop was St Petri. The facade of the church was covered in construction paper, but you can see the spire of the church in the background of the next photo, behind the Dr Seuss tree.

I loved this church. It was very simple and plain inside, but was also obviously well-used and loved. There was a contemplation area in a quiet corner - pottery bowls of sand sat on a bed of sand, enclosed by bricks on the tile floor. Cut logs to sit on were arranged around it and there was a box of candles to light. It felt very peaceful...



However, we were there for another reason - to climb the tower. 544 steps up to the highest row of portholes. I was keen to go all the way up but after the first hundred or so stone steps, we found ourselves on wooden slat stairs - you could see through them all the way down to the previous level, and while I can stand on top of the edge of very high hills without a care in the world, on a man-made structure my legs turn leaden only a few metres above the ground. So I stopped at the bottom row of portholes - which was 400 odd steps up. Al and Em continued but he gave up as well - she made it to the top though. What a trooper!



The last church we saw was St Michaelis. This one was completely different from St Petri. Where even the candles in St Petri were free of charge, we were asked to pay to enter St Michaelis. We were told that it was not an entry fee, but was a 'donation' towards upkeep of the church. ...And the difference is? Photos were also not allowed in case they disturbed people who had come to pray, but there was a film crew inside, and noisy guided tours, and certainly no-one was praying. We were told we could BUY postcards of the inside of the church. This was undoubtedly the worst church experience of the trip - the interior was like a concert hall, although the pulpit was outrageous (can't show you a photo though...). It was made of marble and looked a bit like a half open clam shell ...

After all this spiritual tourism, we decided to head for the mall to relax a bit. Imagine our surprise when we saw this...