/ Steinbeck – Rybnoye

Steinbeck Church

Steinbeck Church

When the church and the village of Steinbeck were founded is unknown. In 1466 the village was given to the Altstadt of Königsberg. Since then the Königsberg magistrate has been the patron of the local church. In the mid-20th century the village was renamed Rybnoye. Coordinates of the church: 54.659135, 20.675954.

It was a very simple parish church. A tower on the west. In 1818 a hurricane did great damage to the church. After that the boulder walls of the church were raised by 60 cm of brickwork. The high gable roof became flatter, and in place of the wooden top of the tower, blown down by the wind in 1822, a new, more massive top was built. The entrance doors on the west and south are set in Gothic arches. Altar of 1700 and, in front of it, a pulpit of 1680. Confessional of 1818. The church had three bells.


Interior of Steinbeck Church

The organ was the work of the well-known Königsberg master Max Terletzki.

During the Second World War the church was damaged and then taken apart for building material. Until 1988 only one and a half storeys of the tower survived, with badly damaged buttresses, and a foundation no more than 50 cm high. At the beginning of 1990 the remains of the church were demolished.



Photos on this page: Bildarchiv Ostpreußen, bildarchiv-ostpreussen.de.


Translated from Russian with the help of AI (Claude, Anthropic), October 2026.