The Lutheran church in the village of Palmniken suffered the same fate as many Orthodox churches. Services were banned, and the building was taken and used as a club, then as a warehouse, then as a gym. The beautiful building, a sample of 19th century architecture, would have been lost if it had not been handed over to the Russian Orthodox Church. Repair and restoration began immediately.
The building of the church was built in the village of Palmniken, where the plant for the production of amber was located. The first settlement on this site is mentioned in documents in 1405, but the official date of foundation is 1654. Around the village there are rich deposits of amber. Its extraction and processing were carried out by workers of the amber plant. At that time the village belonged to East Prussia. A Lutheran temple was laid for workers in 1887. Construction was completed in 1892. The owners of the plant financed the construction.
For the sample took the chapel of St. George near Berlin. The building has a noble, restrained image that perfectly fits into the local landscape. Arched windows let in a lot of light. Before the war, there were 2 bells on a small belfry.
The windows were decorated with stained glass windows on biblical themes, made in the classical German style.
During the fighting, the building was significantly damaged, the bells and stained glass were lost. The last rector of the temple left it in 1947.
Repairs in the building began immediately after the transfer of the building of the Russian Orthodox Church, it was consecrated by Metropolitan Kirill, who later became Patriarch, in 1991.
The temple was dedicated to the icon of the Mother of God of Kazan. This icon has always been a symbol of Russian strength, the ability to resist enemies. Under the sign of this icon, the people’s militia of Minin and Pozharsky gathered, which put an end to the Time of Troubles and liberated Russia from the Polish occupiers. Since then, before difficult trials, people brought prayers before the icon. Peter the Great bowed to the Kazan Mother of God before the Battle of Poltava, Kutuzov — during the War of 1812. Zhukov’s daughter says that Georgy Konstantinovich carried the icon on all fronts. On the eve of the battle for Moscow, Stalin ordered the icon to be placed on a plane and fly around the capital.
During the Battle of Stalingrad, the icon was on the right bank, where the Nazis could not break through.
The list of this icon of the Mother of God is now in the temple of the same name, in the village of Amber.
Charitable Foundation Holy Land
Russian Temples and Monasteries
