Apostelkirche

The Apostelkirche stands in the east of Krumbach, a Bavarian town, on ground once known as Hürben. It is a timber-framed building with pointed arch windows and a steep gabled roof. The exterior keeps a plain face, crowned only by a roof turret with a golden cross.

The Catholic Apostolic community built it between 1863 and 1871. King Maximilian the Second of Bavaria had only just granted the congregation the right to hold services. It was the first Catholic Apostolic church in Bavaria, and many count it as the first Victorian Neogothic church in Germany. That choice of style reaches back to the movement's origins in England. Inside, you find Neogothic carvings on the altar, the pulpit, the organ and the pews.

By 1965 that congregation had largely faded, and the church passed to Krumbach's Evangelical Lutherans. The two communities already knew each other: Protestants had worshipped here in the 1920s, before their own Evangeliumskirche went up. The aim was to keep the building a church rather than turn it into a museum or a concert hall. A renovation in 1975 and 1976 brought it back to its original state. The building shows its age, and the electrical system and the masonry have needed costly repairs. The Lutheran parish still holds its services here, a hundred and fifty years and more after King Maximilian's permission opened the door.