Klaipėda St. John's Church

In St. John's Church, Turgaus st. in 1258 two parishes of Klaipėda (Memel) were established: for the German citizens (later - St. John's parish) and for the Lithuanians of the surrounding area (later - St. Michael's parish). Outside the Lithuanian church grew 12 birch trees, symbolizing the 12 apostles. Tourists were recommended to visit here and listen to the hymns being song. Parishes were founded in the 13th century, when craftsmen and merchants began to gather in the vicinity of the castle. The church was most likely built in the approaches to the castle around 1258, later moved to the eastern part of the island. During a fire in 1540 it burned down, but was soon rebuilt. But it was not durable: in 1630 it is mentioned, that a new prayer house was built in its place and it was also given the name of John the Evangelist. Since then, all subsequent churches, dedicated to the townspeople, have been called by this name. During the fire of 1678 the prayer house burned down again and it is not known, where services were held after that, because the new church was built only in 1696 - 1706 and already in a new place - at the end of Turgaus street. She was a three naves, 123 feet long, 70 feet wide. The tower was introduced later. It served several functions: clocks told the townspeople the time, struck the hours, it was used as an observation deck by firefighters - 195 feet high), a sailship-shaped weather vane mounted on the top indicated the direction of the wind. Most importantly, however, the tall tower was visible from afar to fishermen, returning to port and merchants arriving. When the tower was damaged by a raging storm in 1802, the port authorities immediately allocated money for its repair. The interior of the church was dominated by a gilded altar, a pulpit, decorated with wooden ornaments, brought from old houses of prayer, and several valuable paintings, among which a portrait of Klaipėda historian and ethnographer M. Praetorius. During the great fire of 1854 the church was badly damaged - the roof, coverings and ceiling burned. According to the project of the architect A. Stüler, it was rebuilt in a minimum of three years, but the final works lasted for a whole decade. After the reconstruction, the building remained intact and had a small apse. Later, the side facades were decorated with triangular pediments, pilasters with small turrets. The tower was raised to a height of 75 m and it became the main vertical accent of the city, three bells were placed in it, a clock was installed again and a terracotta bas-relief of the Klaipėda-born poet S. Dach was installed in the western plane. Like the facades, the tower is also decorated with eight turrets. The Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV himself helped the townspeople to build the impressive prayer house. Because he, still a child, lived in Klaipėda, when it unexpectedly became the capital of Prussia, for the entire year 1807. The interior spaces of the church were divided by columns, the pulpit and the altar were decorated with sculptures of Christ and Moses created by the sculptor Albetri, with a powerful Buholz organ. Services are held here only in German. During World War II the church was destroyed, after the war it was completely demolished, and only the bell, cast in 1620, has survived to this day. Currently, preparatory works for the reconstruction of the church are underway, and a reconstruction support fund has been established.

A large, complex, well-designed and richly detailed monumental church model, that fully reproduces the exterior of the house of worship. The model is intended for intermediate and advanced modelers only. There is quite a large stock of textures.