Church of St. John the Baptist

Church of St. John the Baptist

The Tapiau Kirche (in modern Gvardeisk) is much younger than the settlement that arose in the 13th century; the first cult building in this place appeared only in 1502. At that time fires were quite frequent, and the church twice burned completely, in 1661 and 1689. The building that is now located in Victory Square in Gvardeisk was erected in 1694, and around 1700 its interior was decorated with paintings on the wooden ceiling depicting the Fall of man, the Expulsion from Paradise and the Ascension of the Prophet Elijah, as well as with rich altar carvings. Another picturesque masterpiece that used to be here is Golgotha, the triptych written and presented to the native city by artist Lovis Corinth in 1910. In the late 30-ies of the XX century, the ceiling paintings were fixed on a colour film as part of the state program of commemoration of cultural monuments of Germany, and it is believed that there can be still other ones under a layer of plaster. As for the triptych of Corinth, in 1944 it was evacuated with other cultural values, and since then the traces of the masterpiece have been lost. Carved interior decorations also have not survived. After a complete change of the city's population in 1945, the building was used as a warehouse and a shop for a long time, but in 1988 it was transferred to the parish of the Beheading of St. John the Baptist, and since then it has been an operating Orthodox church.

Information has been provided by the regional museum of the town of Gvardeisk.