Dorfkirche Klein Ziethen, Gothic fieldstone church in Ziethen Barnim, Germany.
Dorfkirche Klein Ziethen is a Gothic fieldstone building with a rectangular nave and quadratic choir in the Barnim region of Brandenburg. The interior features a wooden barrel vault decorated with floral paintings.
Klein Ziethen was first recorded in 1329 as paruam Cyten, when it passed from the von Krummensee to the von Arnsdorff family; the 13th-century fieldstone church already stood by then. In 1466 the von Arnsdorff sold most of the village and the church patronage to Chorin Monastery. After the Reformation the Amt Chorin took over in 1542, and by 1543 the parish was vacant, making Klein Ziethen a daughter church of Groß-Ziethen. The village lay deserted in 1638 during the Thirty Years' War.
From 1686 the village had its own legally independent French Reformed congregation, founded by colonists from the County of Hainaut; the pastor lived in Groß-Ziethen and separate church funds caused tension between the two communities. Liturgy and sermons were held in French until the beginning of the 19th century, and a 1730 order of service alternated morning and afternoon services between the two villages. The remaining Lutheran inhabitants were ministered to in Herzsprung.
The church stands in the middle of the village on the Kirchfriedhof, a churchyard enclosed by a wall of uncut fieldstones, reached via Dorfstraße off Bundesstraße 198. The building is in need of renovation in the 21st century, and a survey is planned to assess the cost of renewing the concrete-tile roof. Access to the interior is arranged through the Reformed congregation, which shares the parish with Groß-Ziethen.
The bronze bells, one cast in 1522, were meant to be melted down for the German metal donation in World War I; the congregation prevented this with a compensation payment. The pulpit, in late Renaissance forms from the first half of the 17th century, was painted over in white oil paint in 1885, though the round-arched niches of its basket remain visible.
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