TARGET 101006

The Church On The Move

House (of God) Movers

In October 2007, a German mining company bought an entire village, because it was sitting on a huge and previously untapped coal deposit.

The village, Heuersdorf, was founded over 700 years ago, and populated by many of the descendents of the original settlers, was forcefully evacuated by German legislation in order to to provide the country with the much-needed coal resource.

The sign reads, "Heuersdorf will live! We are not for sale!"

Even after years of fighting the government, the residents were helpless to keep their family homes. The government made its final decision in 2004 to evacuate the village and allow the coal company to destroy all the buildings and dig the ground up to retrieve an estimated 50 million tonnes of brown coal which will supply the electrical needs of the region for years to come.

However, the one thing the residents would never stop fighting for was their beloved church. As a result, the mining company was directed not only to relocate all the residents, but also to move the church to a new, safe location.

Lifting the church off the ground

Lifting the church off the ground was the first major problem. Having been built so long ago, it had been built directly on and into the ground, not on a cement slab. So, its walls and stone flooring were basically unsupported by anything underneath them. Having settled into place on the same ground for over 700 years, even lifting it enough to put supports under it could have demolished its structural integrity.

So, a sturdy framework was built around the sides and a platform actually built under it before any attempt to lift it even a millimeter or two was made.

Ready to roll

Once the building was lifted, it had to be moved safely onto the specially designed trailer which would transport it to the nearby town of Borna, 12 km (almost 8 miles) away.

The stone building was moved from its original location only after the village was evacuated. They waited until then so that any homes, stores, or other buildings which would block their progress could be leveled to make way for the move.

At 19,6 meters (64+ feet) high, 14,5 meters (47.5 feet) long and weighing 750 tons, the job was not an easy task. The contracting company had to spend more than 3 million euro (at the time, around $4.75 million)to move the church to another city.

The 2 km/hr (1.24 mph) trip to Borna was fraught with danger for the building, as the trailer had to cross uneven land, railroad crossings, and bridges over two rivers. When in Borna, no buildings could be torn down to make way for its progress there. The central section of Borna is an aread also hundreds of years old, and the ancient streets are extremely narrow and the buildings the church had to pass between were barely inches from it on both sides. So it had to be worked back and forth on the huge trailer and finally jackknifed into position on the Martin Luther Square in the center of Borna on Reformation Day, when Lutherans traditionally remember 16th-Century church reformer Martin Luther.

Once the trailer moved to the square, the church had to be gently lifted so the trailer could be pulled from underneath it. The process of sitting the church on the ground meant that the supports which held it together from below had to be removed before it could be set into place. Once in place, the surrounding supports could be removed, still with the hopes that no micro fractures had happened to the mortar between the stones - which could even then make the church collapse.

But thanks to the amazing ability of German engineering, the church stands today in Martin Luther square in the small village of Borna, near Leipzig, Germany, where it serves as a tourist "must see", except for Sundays, when worship services are still held there.

And back in Heuersdorf.......

Beautiful downtown Heuersdorf, today.

FEEDBACK MAP

If you got impressions for which this feedback is insufficient, please take a look at the following web sites for more:

Heuersdorf memorial web site
SydneyMorningHerald
Oddity Central
YouTube video of the church's arrival in Borna
YouTube video of the demolition of the homes and buildings
    in Heuersdorf, some of them also over 700 years old.
Heuersdorf in April, 2011