Old Bethlehem Church (Frankfurt-Ginnheim)
The Alte Bethlehemkirche is a church building in Ginnheim , a district of Frankfurt am Main . The church was built as a result of the town's biconfessionalism from the 17th to the 18th century.
prehistory
The village of Ginnheim belonged to the county of Hanau-Münzenberg . The Reformation was introduced here in the first half of the 16th century , initially following the Lutheran model. In 1597, Count Philipp Ludwig II implemented a second Reformation in favor of the Reformed Confession . Of 59 families in Ginnheim only 11 took this step, 48 Ginnheim families refused and remained Lutheran. Since all church buildings - including the Maria Magdalena Chapel of Ginnheim, which was first mentioned in a document in 1336 - and the pastors belonged exclusively to the reformed state church of the county, the Lutheran majority of the village first had to go to the village of Bonames , which was part of the imperial city of Frankfurt "Abroad" went to church services and was looked after by the local pastor .
Only after the Lutheran Counts of Hanau-Lichtenberg ruled in the county of Hanau-Münzenberg from 1642 onwards , the situation for the Lutherans in the county of Hanau-Münzenberg and thus also in Ginnheim relaxed. From 1678 the Evangelical Lutheran congregation in Ginnheim again had its own pastor, who was also responsible for the Lutherans in the villages of Eschersheim and Bockenheim ; However, it was only since 1722 possible to bury the deceased of the Lutheran creed in the (reformed) cemetery.
Building the church
Under Count Philipp Reinhard von Hanau-Munzenberg (1680–1712), the Lutheran congregations were supported to erect their own church buildings in those places in the county where the congregation's size allowed. This is how the Reinhard Churches were built . In Ginnheim, the congregation began building the church in 1699, which was consecrated in 1700. The sovereign contributed nothing to the construction costs of the church in Ginnheim in the amount of 2,194 guilders .
The Old Bethlehem Church is a single-nave hall church , the choir has a five- eighth end. The nave is oriented roughly in an east-west direction, the main portal is in the west. The exterior of the church is simple. Instead of a church tower, there is a roof turret on the gable roof of the church, in which the two bells hang. One bell was made by the Barrthels brothers in 1815, the second, a chilled cast iron bell - replacement for one melted down during World War I - from 1922 by Schilling & Lattermann in Apolda. Arched windows bring light into the building.
Inside the church has a gallery running around on two sides . This used to be reserved for men at church services, while women sat on the ground floor . The church interior is spanned by a stuccoed flat ceiling with a neo-baroque ceiling painting from 1902. The romantic organ from 1903 is in the choir room above the altar. It originally came from the organ builder Daniel Raßmann , but had to give up some of its metal pipes in the First World War and was rebuilt in 1964 by Wilhelm Ratzmann from Gelnhausen .
The church is a cultural monument according to the Hessian Monument Protection Act .
Further development
The end of biconfessionalism in the former county of Hanau was caused by the economic and financial crisis triggered by the Napoleonic wars . After the wars, the largely fading opposition between Reformed and Lutherans in such a relatively small unit as the County of Hanau-Munzenberg no longer justified the church's dual structure. So in 1818 the Hanau Union of the two Protestant churches came about . A practical consequence of the union was that in all places in the county of Hanau that had two Protestant churches, one of the two buildings had to be abandoned. In Ginnheim this fate - after long disputes - met the late medieval , formerly reformed Maria Magdalena Chapel . It was canceled in 1830. At its former location in Ginnheim, on a private property on the corner of Woogstraße / Ginnheimer Mühlgasse, there is now a memorial plaque on the history of church building.
After Ginnheim was incorporated into Frankfurt in 1910, the Evangelical Church in Ginnheim remained in the consistorial district of Kassel , which formed its own Evangelical regional church from Lutheran, Reformed and United communities. On December 14, 1928, the Evangelical Church in Hessen-Kassel ceded its deanery in Bockenheim and the parish of Fechenheim, whose parish had now all been incorporated into the city of Frankfurt, to the Evangelical Church in Frankfurt am Main .
Worth knowing
The church is now called the Old Bethlehem Church , as there is also a (New) Bethlehem Church in Frankfurt-Ginnheim. This belongs to the same parish and is a new building from 1968 to 1971.
Since 2017, the Ginnheimer Kirchplatzgärtchen, a community and neighborhood project of urban horticulture supported by the Historisches Museum Frankfurt , has existed on the church square next to the Old Bethlehem Church . Around 30 raised beds were created on the square using gabions , which are planted and cared for by Ginnheim residents. Associated with the project, which has been in preparation since 2012, is a local seed and plant exchange event that is held at intervals on the church square.
literature
- Evangelical Bethlehem Community Frankfurt-Ginnheim (Ed.): Old Bethlehem Church - New Life. 1700-2000. Festschrift . Frankfurt 2000.
- Hermann Lenz (Ed.): Ginnheim through the ages . Self-published by the Bethlehem Congregation, Frankfurt, undated [approx. 1962]. [Contains numerous errors]
- Heinz Schomann u. a .: Monument Topography City of Frankfurt am Main . Braunschweig 1986, p. 527.
- Heinz Schomann: History and Architecture of the Bethlehem Church . In: Evangelische Bethlehemgemeinde Frankfurt-Ginnheim (ed.): Old Bethlehem Church - New Life. 1700-2000. Festschrift . Frankfurt 2000, p. 6f.
- Stefan Toepfer: The imperial count, the parish wives and a violent argument: Old Bethlehem Church in Ginnheim renovated . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , No. 211 of September 11, 2000.
- Renate Velten: Old Bethlehem Church - New Life: 1700–2000; Festschrift. Frankfurt 2000.
- Sara Wagner: religious dispute in Ginnheim . In: Evangelisches Frankfurt 1/2011, p. 10.
Web links
- State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen (Ed.): Ev. Bethlehemkirche In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hessen
- Baptismal font and lectern on the website of the Evangelical Bethlehem Congregation Frankfurt-Ginnheim (PDF)
- iGuide 360-degree tour of Bethlehem Church
Individual evidence
- ↑ Schomann: History , p. 7.
- ↑ For Organ: Bern Lechla: Memorial Organ with fresh sound . In: Evangelische Bethlehemgemeinde Frankfurt-Ginnheim (ed.): Old Bethlehem Church - New Life. 1700-2000. Festschrift . Frankfurt 2000, pp. 20f.
- ↑ The deanery Bockenheim included the united parishes in Berkersheim, Bockenheim ( Jakobskirche ), Eschersheim ( Emmauskirche ), Eckenheim, Ginnheim (Bethlehem Church ) , Praunheim, Preungesheim and Seckbach ( Marienkirche ).
- ↑ Jürgen Telschow, "Frankfurt's Evangelical Church in the 20th Century: Structures, Finances and Buildings of the Evangelical Church in Frankfurt" , in: Everything has its time: 100 years of Protestant parishes in the old Frankfurt city area, 100 years of Evangelical Community Association / Evangelical Regional Association Frankfurt am Main , Jürgen Telschow (Ed.), Frankfurt am Main: Evangelischer Regionalverband, 1999, (= series of publications of the Evangelical Regional Association Frankfurt am Main; Vol. 23), p. 116 ff., Here p. 12 (numbering in the PDF file differs from the one in the book; accessed on May 14, 2013). ISBN 3-922179-31-2 .
- ↑ Ginnheimer Kirchplatzgärtchen at par.frankfurt.de , the former website of the city of Frankfurt am Main (accessed on April 28, 2018)
- ↑ Kirchplatzgärtchen Ginnheim on anstiftung.de (accessed on April 28, 2018)
Coordinates: 50 ° 8 ′ 43.8 ″ N , 8 ° 39 ′ 9.1 ″ E