Originally Cranz had a prayer house (consecrated on 22 June 1855), half-timbered, with unusually high-set windows. From 1877 it was an independent parish. The organ was built by Terletzki of Königsberg. There were three bells, one of them from Rudau. In 1897, after two years of construction, the first parish church was consecrated on 5 November. It was a spacious brick building in the Gothic Revival style, with a tower and an adjoining chancel. Inside, the hall had a wooden ceiling. The central painting of the altar showed "Christ Holding the Sinking Peter". Above it hung a wooden crucifix. The bells and organ remained the old ones.
There was no fighting in this area during the Second World War. The church survived intact. For a long time the building was used as a gymnasium. Throughout the post-war period only a small annex to the chancel was destroyed. In places the roof is covered with asbestos-cement sheets. Since 1993 the church has belonged to the Orthodox Church.
After repairs, services have been held in St Nicholas Church since 1995.
The Catholic chapel in Cranz was designed and built in the Gothic Revival style in 1903–04 by the carpenter Laufer of Königsberg. The hall measured 9 x 12 m. The walls were painted with magnificent frescoes. After its consecration it came to be called the Andreaskapelle (St Andrew's Chapel). Services were held by a priest from Königsberg twice a month in summer and once a month in winter. In 1936 the Catholics of Cranz got their own pastor, Anton Poschmann. Later a children's holiday home was set up in the chapel.
After 1945 the chapel was intact and was used as a warehouse. The warehouse burned twice, and as a result all the frescoes were lost. In the 1990s the chapel was handed over to the Orthodox Church.
After repairs, it became home to the Orthodox Church of St Andrew the First-Called.
There was also a Baptist chapel in Cranz, at Bahnhofstrasse 3, belonging to the Königsberg-Haberberg Baptist congregation.
Photos: 1–2. Bildarchiv Ostpreußen, bildarchiv-ostpreussen.de. 3. Mikhail Ogorodnikov (2020).
Translated from Russian with the help of AI (Claude, Anthropic), October 2026.
