Johanneskirche (Eltville-Erbach)
The Johanneskirche is a neo-Gothic Protestant church built between 1861 and 1865 in Erbach , a district of Eltville am Rhein in Hesse . It is the oldest Protestant church in the Rheingau and was donated by Marianne von Oranien-Nassau on the occasion of the death of her 12-year-old son.
history
Marianne von Oranien-Nassau, Princess of the Netherlands, was married to Prince Albrecht of Prussia from 1830 to 1849 . In 1845 she left her husband because he had entered into an extramarital relationship, in 1848 she entered into an inappropriate love affair with her coachman and later cabinet secretary, the Dutchman Johannes van Rossum . In 1849 their unmarried son, Johann Wilhelm, was born, a scandal at the time that finally led the Dutch and Prussian courts to agree to the divorce that Marianne and Albrecht had longed for.
In 1855 Marianne acquired Reinhartshausen Castle in Erbach in the Rheingau, a district of Eltville am Rhein since the 20th century , where she settled with her partner and their son. There she worked as a patroness for the next few decades and gained great sympathy among the population through her social commitment to the needy. When Marianne's and van Rossum's son Johann Wilhelm von Reinhartshausen died of scarlet fever in 1861 at the age of only 12 , the deeply religious Protestant gave the community a piece of land and 60,000 guilders for the construction of the first Protestant church in the Rheingau and for one on the evening of his death rectory and financing of a pastorate . In doing so, she complied with her son's wish for his own place of worship for Protestant Christians in the Rheingau, which he had expressed shortly before his early death.
The plans for the new building were drawn up by Eduard Zais , ducal Nassau building officer in Nassau an der Lahn and son of the famous Nassau master builder Christian Zais . Although he still used classicist proportions in accordance with his training, the neo-Gothic individual forms were already based on the market church in Wiesbaden, which was just completed at the time . Influences from the Bonifatius Church there can also be seen in the interior. After almost four years of construction, the building was consecrated in 1865 as the first Protestant church in the Rheingau. Marianne's son Johann Wilhelm von Reinhartshausen was buried in the church's crypt. At the head of his sarcophagus made of gray Lahn marble , there is a small angel figure from the workshop of the Dutch sculptor Johann Heinrich Stöver, who also created the figures of Faith, Love and Hope behind the altar. Johann Wilhelm's sarcophagus bears the inscription:
"JW von Reinhartshausen
born in Cefalu, October 30th, 1849
completed in Erbach, December 25th, 1861
His soul pleases God,
that's why He hurries with him out of this life."
115 years after the foundation stone was laid in 1863, the previously nameless church was given the name Evangelical Johanneskirche . The apostle John is to be honored and at the same time the son Johann Wilhelm the founder is to be remembered. Simultaneously with the completed renovation on the occasion of the 150th anniversary, the Johanneskirche was able to reopen on the Reformation Day weekend 2015 with a festival program of church services and concerts.
architecture
Exterior
The building is a three-aisled hall church with a slate gable roof . The building material is plastered brick , completely set sandstone and partly also terracotta were used for the architectural parts. In the south a tower with a pointed spire emerges from the facade like a risalit , the floor plan of which merges from a square to an octagon above the roof; in the north there is a 5/8 choir the full width of the central nave. The east facing was dispensed with during the construction period in favor of a picturesque effect on the Rhine . As a result of the new building area under the church that was built in the middle of the 20th century, the view of the church building from the Rhine was partially blocked.
The wall surfaces are divided vertically by a system of buttresses with double water hammer. Its conclusion is formed by columns with nuns' head tracery protruding far beyond the roof , as well as these crowning pinnacles with finials . At the north-east, south-east, south-west and north-west corners, the above-mentioned structure is octagonal and two-tiered. The actual wall surfaces are occupied by high pointed arched windows , three of them on the northern choir, four each on the east and west side and two on the sides of the tower shaft on the south side. The windows are filled with simple tracery with nuns' heads and three- and five-passports .
The horizontal structure is a coffin cornice below the window and a frieze of tracery and four-passages below the eaves . Only the tracery frieze with the buttresses is cranked and also carried out on the south facade. The side, designed as a show facade, differs in its structure in that it is crowned in the sense of a romantic late classicism by a three- stepped gable between the buttresses and the tower shaft. The filling of the gable is made up of nuns' head tracery, freely treated tracery forms, and pinnacles with finials at the end.
The lowest part of the tower shaft is the southern main portal with neo-Gothic door leaf with skylight within a pointed arch portal with eyelashes and flanking, two-tier pinnacles with finials. The filling of the eyelash consists of a tracery flower as well as three and five passes, the outside is decorated with crabs . An eight-part rose window is located directly above the crowning finial .
At the height of the stepped gable, the tower has a three-part, coupled pointed arch window to the south, above it, with the exception of the north side, a clock. The ends of the buttresses flanking at this height are also repeated on the rear roof surface. There they cut into the square tower floor plan, transforming it into the octagon. A frieze made of four-passages surrounds the following tower structure.
The octagonal tower structure repeats both the vertical and horizontal structure of the main building on a vertically compressed scale. Eight buttresses with simple water hammer and pinnacle structures rise between the eight narrow, ogivally closed windows, which serve as sound openings and are equipped with nuns' head tracery. Below the eaves of the final pointed helmet with finial, the friezes of tracery and quatrefoils are again used.
Interior
In the south, below the tower, there is a simple vestibule with tied-off side chapels , which, like the main entrance, opens to the main nave through a pointed arch portal with a skylight . The modern gallery for the organ is located directly above the entrance . The interior of the nave is spanned by a ribbed vault with four bays on octagonal pillars with fighter capitals . The octagonal pillars made of red Main sandstone have capitals, which are the only component still kept in a pure classical style and from which the vault ribs arise and run to the keystones .
There is a somewhat more elaborate star vault above the choir , with the top of the vault being occupied by a multi-colored glass skylight . The north wall of the choir opens up to the crypt of Johann Wilhelm von Reinhartshausen . This is framed by an allegorical group of figures made of Carrara marble by the Dutch sculptor Johann Heinrich Stöver : Faith, love and hope. The middle allegory (love) was replaced by a cross in 1956 and is now located in the east side chapel of the tower, in a memorial room next to the entrance.
organ
The Voigt organ on the gallery was built in 1863 by the organ builder Christian Friedrich Voigt (1803–1868). In 1832 he founded an organ workshop in Igstadt , which was one of the leading workshops in the Duchy of Nassau . With its 18 stops, the Erbach organ is one of the early romantic organs . In contrast to the baroque organs, this type of organ has more romantic timbres. During a restoration, the old trumpet register was removed and relocated. In 2007, the trumpet register, which had meanwhile been found again, was reinstalled during a renewed restoration and the organ was thus restored in its original form.
Interior design
Date of origin 1865
When it was built, the church of the Holy Sepulcher was completely whitewashed. The dark brown hue of the wooden furnishings, pulpit, organ and stalls, and the bright white of the walls shaped the room. The choir, lying in the twilight, with a group of white marble, was illuminated solely through a glass window in the vault, creating a deliberately sad atmosphere.
First renovation between 1890 and 1906
For the 25th anniversary of the church building (1890), the community had tracery windows installed in the choir, which gave the nave its distinctive shape and additional lighting. The artist Franz Maria Schnitz had designed the windows; his signature is preserved to the right of the entrance to the church. The middle vine window was created on the basis of a donation by Marianne's son Albrecht (1837–1906), it shows the crucifixion of Jesus on a vine. The two windows to the right and left of it presumably depict the daughters of the pastor Deißmann. The former royal Prussian state minister had one of these windows. Donated by D. Albrecht von Stosch .
In 1906 the church became the city's Protestant parish church. On this occasion, the aim was to create a bright, friendly look in the interior of the church by applying colored paintings to the walls and ceilings.
Second renovation in the 1960s
The church was spared from destruction in the Second World War . During a renovation in the 1960s, the walls were painted a light gray tone, pillars and ribs were made in a red sandstone tone, the ceiling frame was plastered over white and parts of the side boxes were removed. The wooden furnishings, including the pulpit, organ and stalls, were also painted light gray. The atmosphere in the church was rather sober.
Third renovation in 2015
Another renovation of the church took place in 2015 to remove the remains of the white and light gray paintwork from the 1960s, because experts wanted to expose the whitewashed painting from 1906. So the interior of the church got back the appearance of 1906. The pulpit, organ and stalls received their painted wood grain back. The reconstructions meant that the walls are now painted in warm colors and decorated with red ornamental ribbons, the slimness of the pillars is emphasized by vertical white strips. The green background of the vaults is adorned with gold stars and green vine leaves, and the base is decorated with an elaborate carpet painting. In the interior, to the left and right of the entrance gate of the church, the life-size portraits of the two reformers Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon surprisingly came to light.
Special trees in front of the church
On the square in front of the entrance to the church are a Martin Luther linden tree, planted on November 10, 1883, 400 years after Luther's birth, and a Philipp Melanchthon oak, planted on February 16, 1884, 387 years after Melanchthon's birth . Wooden signs indicate this.
literature
- Folkhard Cremer (edit.): Handbook of German Art Monuments. Hesse II. Darmstadt administrative district. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-422-03117-3 , p. 226 and 227.
- Annette Dopatka: Marianne von Preußen, Princess of the Netherlands , Waldemar Kramer Verlag, 2003, ISBN 3-7829-0538-5
- Hartmut Heinemann: Princess Marianne of the Netherlands (1810-1883) and the Rheingau. A woman between tradition and emancipation. In: Rheingau Forum, Volume 11/2002, Issue 2, pp. 1–11.
- Evangelical Voice, September - November 2015 , Congregational Letter of the Evangelical Church Congregation Triangelis - Eltville, Erbach, Kiedrich
Web links
- A princess founds a church , website of the Evangelical Church Community Triangelis - Eltville, Erbach, Kiedrich , accessed on November 5, 2015
- Bridging the gap between 1906 and 2016 , website of the Evangelical Church Community Triangelis - Eltville, Erbach, Kiedrich, accessed on November 3, 2015
- Flyer Evangelical Johanneskirche of the Evangelical Church Community Triangelis - Eltville, Erbach, Kiedrich, accessed on November 3, 2015
Individual evidence
- ↑ Triangelis celebrates the reopening and 150th birthday of the Erbacher Johanneskirche in Wiesbadener Tagblatt from November 2nd, 2015
- ↑ Golden stars in the church sky in FAZ of September 10, 2014, p. 38.
- ↑ Dr. Verena Jakobi, State Office for Monument Preservation: The Protestant Johanneskirche in Erbach in Evangelical Voice, September - November 2015 , p. 4.
Coordinates: 50 ° 1 '22.5 " N , 8 ° 5' 59.6" E