The Evangelical Lutheran Parish of Braunlage introduces itself.
Unfortunately, we do not know exactly how long there has been a church congregation in Braunlage, nor do we know how long the village of Braunlage has existed. We know a little more about the church buildings in our community, which we will explain on the following pages.
The Lutheran parish of Braunlage is a member of the parish association Kapellenfleck im Harz, which was founded on 1.1.2017. This association of parishes consists of 9 parishes and is divided into 4 pastoral districts, each with one pastor's office:
Braunlage-Tanne, Hohegeiß-Trautenstein-Zorge, Wieda-Tettenborn and Walkenried-Neuhof.
The KGV Kapellenfleck is one of the four associations of our Provostry of Bad Harzburg (www.propstei-badharzburg.de), which consists of 27 parishes, extends over three districts in 2 federal states and is led by Provost Höfel. In the years 1945 to 1976, the Braunlage parish belonged to the rest of the Blankenburg provostry, based in Walkenried. The political municipality of Braunlage was the seat of the Blankenburg district from 1945 to 1972; since 1972 it has belonged to the Goslar district.
The Provostry of Bad Harzburg, in turn, is one of 12 sub-districts of the Lutheran Regional Church in Brunswick (www.landeskirche-braunschweig.de), to which the Braunlage congregation has always belonged, with the exception of the years 1807 to 1813, when Braunlage belonged to the Kingdom of Westphalia and the pastor and cantor were sworn to Jerome (Napoleon's brother). Our regional church is one of 20-member churches (Landeskirchen) of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and has existed since 1568, when the Reformation was introduced in the Duchy of Brunswick.
Herr Dr. H.U. Bonewitz
History
The first church in Braunlage
What we know about this church comes mainly from an old chronicle of the village of Braunlage, written around 1679 by the judge Johann Bernhard Fricke (1643 - 1711), and the oldest picture we have is the Merian engraving from around 1650. Both are presented here.
An old chronicle of the village of Braunlage.
The church was built in 1602 and was quite small at the beginning, but our ancestors gave good instructions for its expansion; the building breakthrough did not happen immediately. During the lifetime of the then pastor, Magister Leopold Holdefreund, became Mr Johan Christoph Höhne from Blankenburg, a native of Blankenburg, his adjunct on 11 October 1657; because of his strong excuses and the increase in the number of subjects, the building was brokenthrough and extended as it is now.
The bells in such a church were very small, consisting of a small metal bell and a somewhat larger iron bell. In the time of Judge Johan Fricken, a somewhat larger bell was purchased and paid for with 150 Thaler in a small mountain town called "zum Grunde"., which, along with the previous two small bells, still exists and is used daily.
The altar table in the church was made by my blessed grandfather Caspar Beyer at his own expense and erected in honour of God and the church. The sermon chair was made by my late father Johann Fricke and the factor Christian Walter at their own expense, and erected in honour of God and the church, but also in their memory, at a cost of over 50 Thaler.
Written ca.1679 by J.B. Fricke
This first church stood roughly where a new post office building was built in 1932 and where the town chalet stands today, which is in the Pfarr-street, due east opposite the vicarage.
In addition to the aforementioned extension of 1657, a third bell was acquired in 1697 and probably the bell tower was erected.
Some of the inventory mentioned in the chronicle can be seen today in the sacred room of our local history and ski museum (www.museum-braunlage.de).