Ranchi, Nov. 1: Saving the past is preserving the future, or so it seems as the capital gears up to formally inaugurate a unique chapel-cum-museum, housing the relics of a chapel built by German missionaries in 1845.

To be inaugurated tomorrow by Dr Ulrich Shoentube, the director of Gossner Mission in Berlin, Germany, the museum would house prized relics of the 165-year-old chapel.

“Four German missionaries — Pastor E. Schatz, F. Batsch, A. Brandt and H. Janke — arrived in Ranchi via Calcutta in 1845. They initially put up a tent to stay where the present Bethseda School in the GEL campus now stands. The tent served as a place of prayer, which was later replaced by a mud house that could accommodate 50 people,” said Gossner Evangelical Lutheran Church (GEL) secretary Cyril Lakra.

Among the relics are mud tiles, unbaked mud bricks, parts of old wooden beams, an intricately carved wooden door, a 155-year old wooden cross, a photograph of the first four German missionaries and a prized photograph of Berlin’s Father Johannes Evangelista Gossner.

The old chapel structure saw massive renovation work since last December. Church collections — a quantum of Rs 23 lakh — funded the renovations under the aegis of the GEL. Care has been taken to reuse material as much as possible, including century-old wooden beams, while preserving the broad structure.

“The renovated chapel will serve as a prayer tower for the faithful who can pray anytime,” Lakra said, adding that spiritual counselling would also be offered.

While German missionaries landed at Ranchi in 1845, the first Roman Catholic missionary — Constance Lievens — came exactly four decades later.

The tumultuous World Wars affected European missionaries. The capital’s Jesuit Mission was set up in 1935.