Old Church (Essen-Altenessen)
The Old Church is a Protestant church building in the Altenessen district of Essen . It was built from 1887 to 1890 and today belongs to the Evangelical Church Community of Altenessen-Karnap.
history
In 1873 an emergency church was handed over to its destination, which stood on the grounds of the municipal office that later existed until 1979. The approval document from the Prussian Ministry of Culture is dated April 25, 1875, which is considered to be the founding day of the community, which had around 3000 members at the time. The street on which the church is located was later dedicated to its first pastor, Karl Denkhaus.
Today's four-bay , three-aisled church was built according to plans by the architects Carl Nordmann and Julius Flügge in the neo-Gothic style. The church has a short transept with large wheeled windows, a separate choir and a west tower. The choir has a stone rib vault over five sides of the octagon. The naves and the transept have a wooden vault. Galleries have been drawn into the side aisles. The foundation stone was laid on August 21, 1887, the inauguration with a first service on October 5, 1890. At this time, the number of parishioners had doubled to 6,000 as a result of the immigration of workers for the rapidly developing mining industry and associated industries. For this reason, an auxiliary preacher position was created as early as 1887.
In 1895, the southern part of the community was named its own district and a year later Karnap was separated as an independent parish. In 1903 the southern district received its own community center with the Essen-Altenessen Süd community center. From 1907 there were three pastors in the parish, followed by a fourth in 1921, because the number of parishioners had increased to 20,000 due to immigration due to the rapidly advancing industrialization. During the church struggle from 1933 to around 1939, the old church was the center of bitter disputes between German Christians and the Confessing Church . The church building survived the Second World War almost unscathed.
The church building has been a listed building since September 8, 1988 , as is its organ. In 2008 the parishes of Altenessen and Karnap were reunited to form today's Evangelical Church Parish of Altenessen-Karnap. Its border now runs like it was in 1875. On August 26, 2012, the Old Church was awarded the signet Reliably Open Church .
organ
The organ comes from the organ builder Wilhelm Sauer and is the oldest organ built by him in the Ruhr area . It went into operation for the first time for the consecration on October 5, 1890. In 1949 the mechanical action was converted to electropneumatic operation. The organ was repaired again in the 1980s.
On March 20, 2014, the presbytery decided to renovate the organ with signs of material fatigue in such a way that it regains its former romantic sound. This was followed by decommissioning and a thorough restoration, also taking into account the preservation of historical monuments. Large parts of the organ, including most of the approximately 1000 pipes, were renovated by the Rieger Orgelbau company in Austria. The original mechanical action was restored. In addition, the electrics installed at the end of the 1940s did not meet current safety regulations.
90,000 euros of the total renovation costs of around 410,000 euros came from the parish, 10,000 euros from the Organ Sound Foundation of the Evangelical Churches in Germany (EKD) and 20,000 euros from the church building association of the old church founded in 2001. Further amounts came from other donors.
On September 9, 2017, the renovated Sauer organ was put back into operation during an organ night. She has the following disposition :
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Web links
- Website of the Evangelical Church Community Altenessen-Karnap ; accessed on September 19, 2017
- Extract from the list of monuments of the city of Essen ; accessed on September 19, 2017
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Foundation Orgelklang, Alte Kirche Altenessen , accessed on 19 September 2017
- ^ Sauer organ in the old church in Altenessen remains silent for a longer period of time ; in Derwesten.de on March 16, 2016; accessed on September 19, 2017
Coordinates: 51 ° 29 ′ 52.7 ″ N , 7 ° 0 ′ 25.5 ″ E