Johanneskirche (Hanau)
The Johanneskirche (today also: Alte Johanneskirche ) was built in 1658 as the church of the Lutheran congregation in Hanau .
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Historical framework
It owes its emergence to the biconfessionalism of the German Reformation , especially in the county of Hanau-Münzenberg . The county had been reformed since the reign of Count Philipp Ludwig II of Hanau-Munzenberg . When the Counts of Hanau-Münzenberg died out in 1642, their inheritance fell to the Lutheran Count Friedrich Casimir von Hanau-Lichtenberg .
The residence town of the County of Hanau-Munzenberg, Hanau , consisted at that time of two legally independent towns: Old and New Hanau. The latter was settled at the turn of the 16th to the 17th century by Reformed religious refugees from France and the Spanish Netherlands . Its ruling class consisted of rich citizens, merchants and tradespeople, who held a dominant economic position within the county, compared to a weak position of the new count when he came to power. Some feudal lords of the county of Hanau-Münzenberg tried to deny his inheritance to the man who had come from the distant Hanau-Lichtenberg. In addition, the county was heavily indebted due to the Thirty Years War and relied on the credit of the citizens. The citizenship set conditions for taking office, and Friedrich Casimir had no choice but to grant the demands in order to be able to take over his inheritance at all. This included, above all, the guarantee that the Reformed would continue to practice their religion freely in the future. The Lutheran service for the count and his court should be limited to the palace chapel.
construction
On June 4, 1658, the foundation stone for the Lutheran Johanneskirche was laid in the presence of the prince-elector and namesake Johann Georg II of Saxony . This had come over from the coronation of Emperor Leopold I from neighboring Frankfurt am Main . Appeals for donations in other Lutheran countries preceded this, as the Reformed subjects naturally refused to support such a project and the count was constantly in financial difficulties. The count's mint had to be relocated in 1658 for the construction of the church and was now diagonally opposite in the Erbsengasse (see New Mint ).
The inauguration of this sermon church in the form of a transverse church took place on January 17, 1664. To design the large room with a cantilevered, column-free coffered ceiling, a roof structure constructed as a hanging structure was necessary. Then the organ was installed by Abraham Fischer from Marktbreit . The foundation stone for the tower was laid on August 8, 1679, and work was completed on July 10, 1691.
From 1727 to 1729 the church was expanded. Construction director Christian Ludwig Hermann is believed to be the architect.
The building
The church was built in the old town of Hanau, relatively close to the castle. In its west wall, it includes the medieval city wall of the old town . In terms of style, it is striking that - in the middle of the Baroque era - it uses Gothic style elements, such as pointed arch windows and a Gothic- style choir, albeit facing north. The latter is due to the layout of the property available. The main entrance was in the south and is crowned by the 47 meter high tower in the middle on the narrow side. The backward-looking choice of style could be due to the fact that the neighboring Reformed Marienkirche is a Gothic building from the Middle Ages, which should be architecturally defied or a historicity of the Lutheran denomination in Hanau should be pretended, which did not exist.
The interior of the church was completely different from what the external architectural form seemed to dictate: the ground floor stalls and the galleries, including the choir loft, were oriented towards the pulpit in the middle of the western longitudinal wall in the transverse church concept , the altar was free for the reception of the Lord's Supper at the transition from the ship to the choir. The room concept thus corresponded to the requirements of the Reformation understanding of worship. The glass painter Otto Linnemann from Frankfurt designed and made three glass windows in 1908. "Jesus the child friend" and the "disciples at Emmaus" were depicted. He also made a window with a so-called carpet pattern.
The building also contained the hereditary burial for the Lutheran line of the Hanau family and was used - even after 1736 by the Kurhessian heirs - until the 19th century.
After the Second World War
The church was badly damaged during the Second World War , especially during the air raid on Hanau on March 19, 1945 . The remaining enclosing walls of the Johanneskirche were reused on three sides during the construction in 1956/57 according to plans by the architect Karl Heinz Doll, when a supra-congregational center was built here. The church space was divided horizontally by a retracted ceiling. Even after a renovation in the 1970s, this concept and use were retained, so that not much of the historic building can be seen inside. Today the church serves the spatially neighboring parish of the Marienkirche. Regular services no longer take place here. The congregation of the Johanneskirche built the New Johanneskirche as a replacement at another location until 1960 . In November 2012, the church tower was given back the outline of the hood that had been destroyed in the Second World War with a simplified steel construction based closely on the historical model.
Surname
Originally the church was called "Lutheran Church". It was not until the beginning of the 19th century that the Reformed and Lutheran regional churches in Hanau were united in the Hanau Union and the previous name “Lutheran Church” became inoperative that it was given the name “Johanneskirche”. It was named after the Elector Johann Georg II of Saxony who was present at the laying of the foundation stone.
literature
- Max Aschkewitz: Pastor history of the Hanau district ("Hanauer Union") until 1986 , part 1 = publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse 33. Marburg 1984, p. 45ff.
- Gerhard Bott : Castles and public buildings in the county of Hanau-Lichtenberg in the 17th and 18th centuries. New magazine for Hanau history 2015, p. 35ff. (here especially p. 37f., 64 - 66).
- Kathrin Ellwardt, church building between evangelical ideals and absolutist rule. The cross churches in the Hessian area from the Reformation century to the Seven Years' War. Dissertation Marburg 2000. Michael Imhof Verlag Petersberg 2004. ISBN 3-937251-34-0 - without considering the transverse church design from the beginning, compare illustration Johann Wilhelm from 1662 and 1668
- Festschrift for the 250th anniversary of the laying of the foundation stone of the Johanneskirche in Hanau . Hanau 1908.
- Ernst Julius Zimmermann : Hanau city and country. 3rd edition, Hanau 1919, ND 1978.
Web links
- op-online.de accessed on November 18, 2012
Individual evidence
- ↑ swap.cid-online.net ( Memento from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Johann Wilhelm , Architectura civilis , 2nd edition Frankfurt 1662 - The 1st edition Frankfurt 1654 is still without illustration Hanau; In the opening credits: imperial dedication from 1649 with a six-year reprint prohibition as copyright protection. Further editions of this widespread first textbook on wood construction: Nuremberg 1668, 1675 and 1705 - as copper engraving no. 21 (with image inscription on scan page 21) can be viewed on [1]
- ^ Ellwardt, p. 236.
- ↑ Ellwardt, p. 237.
Coordinates: 50 ° 8 ′ 14.6 ″ N , 8 ° 55 ′ 0.1 ″ E