Swiss Review 6/2018

Swiss Review / November 2018 / No.6 9 sonable for students of other faiths to study in a Christian church? Theolo- gian Huber shakes her head over this question. Reformed church spaces are theoretically, unlike Catholic church spaces, only considered sa- cred spaces when a congregation holds church services in them. And the lawyer Tobler says: “Students are grown up and can deal with it.” The case would be quite different if non-Christian schoolchildren were to be taught in a church. She sees the biggest obstacles else- where: the church interior is not de- signed to be heated continuously – es- pecially the organ, which is highly sensitive to the indoor climate. And the pews are unsuitable for lecture hall seating arrangements. But here too, the optimism of the two women is evident. They believe these prob- lems can be solved. The department of monument preservation is open to concrete projects. “Abandoning the church and letting it decay is not in their interest either,” says Tobler. These words could come from Jo- hannes Stückelberger. He says that much more is possible than is gener- ally assumed regarding church con- versions. There are churches, for ex- ample in Olten or Schaffhausen, in which offices and a kitchen were in- stalled and the parish hall given up. Of course, there is always a balancing of priorities, “but one must not for- get to add the symbolic value of a church building to the equation”. A church has potential and is a “spiritual asset”. Making the church brand visible in public works much better with a church than with a par- ish hall. He therefore advises church representatives to seek dialogue with the public more often: “They must make it an issue that is talked about and show what is possible in their premises”. These could in turn be the words of Franziska Huber. It runs counter to her image of the church when churches seek self-preservation on their own account, she says. She speaks of a break with tradition, which has taken place in many areas: “There are many children who are no longer religiously socialised.” Now it is important to prevent the connec- tion frombreaking, she says. Churches opening their doors to everyone would be a logical step. “If a person comes to us, eats with us or worships with us, it doesn’t matter what their motives are.” The church as a structural manifestion Church spaces for everyone, although “everyone” no longer means the same as it used to – that no longer sounds like “only Reformed” or “only Catho- lic”. Rather, it sounds like interreli- gious “open churches” or so-called city churches, which already exist in several Swiss cities. And this is remi- niscent of what Jean-Daniel Gross, a curator of historical monuments in Bern, noted on the first Church Con- struction Day: Churches should not be understood exclusively as symbols of the Christian religion. They are – in a very broad sense and independent of religious feelings – places of iden- tification. They must be seen as “structural manifestations of a centre of whatever kind in our society”, he said. “Deep in our subconscious minds, we consider them to be guar- antors of social, cultural and spiritual stability.” Swiss churches that are no longer traditional churches (only in German): www.schweizerkirchenbautag.ch > Datenbank Kirchenumnutzung > Ort DÖLF BARBEN IS AN EDITOR WITH THE NEWSPAPER “DER BUND” IN BERN. Poor outcome: Leonhard Church St. Gallen The renovation of the Reformed Church of St. Leonhard in St. Gallen, which was built in 1887, would have cost 4.5 million Swiss francs. This was too expensive for the parish. The demolition of the protected building, whose land was used profitably, was out of the question. The church was finally sold to an architect for 45,000 Swiss francs. He wanted to turn it into a cultural centre with restaurants, concerts, theatres, film screenings and fashion shows. None of this has happened so far.