Basel – The Elisabethenkirche
The Elisabethenkirche, known in its contemporary function as the Offene Kirche Elisabethen (Open Church of St. Elisabeth), was constructed in the mid-nineteenth century as the first Protestant church to be built in the city since the 1529 Reformation. Faced with substantial growth in the city, a decision was made in the 1850s to construct this church. The impetus and financial backing for the Elisabethenkirche came from Christoph Merian (1800-1858) and his wife Margarethe Burckhardt-Merian (1806-1886). Christoph Merian was a significant figure in Basel as he was a wealthy banker, an accomplished agronomist and one of Switzerland’s largest landowners, having received the extensive Brüglingen estate as a wedding gift. Unfortunately, he promptly died before seeing the church complete, but at least wife saw the finished building.
A competition for the design took place in 1855 and it was won by Ferdinand Stadler, with construction of the church starting in the following year. It was built in the Neo-Gothic style and stands 72 metres in height, one of the tallest buildings in the city.
The pulpit is grand and looks rather splendid.
The side aisle. There were plans in 1968 to demolish the building as the congregation size had fallen, but, fortunately, it was saved.
Since 1994, the church has been classed as an “Open Church” which is welcoming to anyone and the plan is that they are “diverse spiritual, cultural, and social needs of contemporary urban dwellers, explicitly welcoming people irrespective of their background, origin, race, religion,or sexual orientation.”
The Chancel.
Looking back along the nave.
The decorative ceiling. It’s fortunate that the building is still standing and it gives an impression of being older than it actually is. There are some who clearly aren’t impressed with the church’s new role in society, with someone complaining alongside their one star review that they had a LGBT banner on display, but the owner responded with “and what wrong with this, other than your narrow mind?” which is entirely the right reply as far as I’m concerned. Another person posted that “It is a cafe, and the building is used for promotion of activist causes.”
The reply was:
“You are so wrong and only show by this review how yesterday-ish you are! We are and allways will be: a place to worship and celebrate. But we have to earn our own money – so we rent the church out, when we don’t need it to pray or celebrate. It’s unfair by you to rate with 1 point, what you can’t tell or judge. And obviously you can’t! Hopefully won’t be judged so harsh like you judge.”
I’m going now to leave them a five star review. There’s an irony here that the situation is now perhaps more tolerant, welcoming and diverse than it was when it was a church. That’s perhaps a little controversial for my little blog, but there we go.
