Klaipėda Anglican Church

The Anglican religion reached Klaipėda in the 18th c. together with English merchants and industrialists. For some time religious communities that did not have their own house of worship, including the Anglicans, used the hall of the Exchange Building. Anglicans also used to host their mass at the Baptist Church, yet in the second half of the 18th c. preparations were already made for the construction of an Anglican Church. In 1860 newcomer English merchants invited the pastor C. R. de Haviland to come to Klaipėda for full-time work.
In the late 18th c. there were plans to build an Anglican church on the plot between the modern-day Drama Theatre and Dangė River, donated by the Simpson family, but the plot was sold to Klaipėda Garrison, which built a horse riding arena. The construction matters were taken by the merchant and ship owner from Klaipėda J. Schultz. He purchased a plot on Malkų Street for the construction of the church. After his death the plot was donated to the city. The accumulation of funds for the construction was organised by the wives of William Campbell, Vice-Consul of Klaipėda, and the English Consul General in Danzig. The cause received support from the English Government and individual benefactors – English merchants, clergy, seamen and even the Queen of England herself. The construction on the former Malkų Street started on 7 November 1861. The author of the project was a local drawing teacher Gustav Waldhauer. Gustav Waldhauer was known for being the author of the textbook on linear perspective (1850), a detailed description of Klaipėda city (1852) and compiler of the 19th c. lithography album of Klaipėda. The place near the port was picked for the convenience of mariners, visiting Klaipėda in thousands in the late 19th c. The course of the constructions was also monitored by the former English Princess Augusta Victoria, wife of Prince Wilhelm, who later became the German Emperor Wilhelm II. The neo-Gothic church with arched elements, borrowed from the Romanesque style, was built in two years. Its shapes, especially the blunt belfry with turrets rising on each corner, reminded of the 13th c. English Gothic cathedrals in York, Lincoln, Manchester and Canterbury. The façades featured even more Gothic elements: a pointed-arch portal, window openings and niches, as well as Romanesque blind arcades, dividing the belfry into horizontal sections. The church was small, approximately 11×20 m with 150 seats inside. The construction costed 1 800 English pounds. The altar, pulpit and organ were donated by the family of the rich merchant Plaw. Above the altar there was the state coat of arms of England, while the side walls were decorated with marble plates with Biblical texts, donated by the English Queen Victoria. Above the main portal there was an inscription with the date of the consecration – English Church 1863.
The Anglican Parish of Klaipėda was subordinate to the bishop of London. Because the parish was small and the wages were low, Anglican ministers didn’t want to stay in the city for long. In the late 19th c. the trade with England declined and a part of the merchants that lived in Klaipėda returned to their homeland, so in the early 20th c. the church was transferred to the local Lutherans with a condition that its interior would remain unchanged. The last Anglican mass was hosted on 1 January 1900 by the pastor Hopgood. As of 1933 every third Sunday this church also hosted Lutheran mass in Lithuanian language. The Anglican Church was demolished after the war, circa 1948 during the expansion and rearrangement of the port. The fragmented foundation of the church, found during the archaeological research, conducted in 2016, confirmed that the church was located in the port’s territory. Currently this location is inaccessible.