Old church Wupperfeld
The Old Church Wupperfeld is a former Protestant church in Wuppertal - Barmen . It was decommissioned and sold as a place of worship in 2017.
history
Emergence
Today's Oberbarmens area , located on the border between the Duchy of Berg and Prussia in the 18th century , initially belonged to the Lutheran congregation of Schwelm, which has been Prussian since 1666 . In 1744 , the Lutherans Wichlinghausen were the first to gain the right to found their own church and to build a church, and for their part they fought against the split off of the “Wupperströmer” who wanted to build their own community and church in the valley. The foundation of the community became the subject of diplomacy between the sovereign, Elector Karl Theodor and the Prussian King Friedrich II , who supported the position of the Wichlinghausers. Finally, on May 16, 1777, the elector approved the construction of the church for the Lutherans in Wuppertal. In return, the people of Wupperström committed themselves to support the Catholic community founded in 1772 in the Prussian town of Hattingen with a building site and by assuming all the necessary costs.
In July 1777 the new congregation was constituted, the Wupperfeld was parceled out and a provisional wooden church, a so-called Tente, was built for around 900 people and was consecrated as the first church in the Lutheran congregation of Wupperfeld, with ongoing protests from the neighboring congregation. The construction of the church cost 30,846 Reichstaler and was financed to about a third from collection money that was collected within the community, but also outside the country. The foundation stone was laid on March 24, 1779, and the Wupperfeld church was consecrated on July 10, 1785. The pastorate, a school house, a teacher's apartment, a poor house and orphanage and the nearby cemetery were laid out at the same time.
The original construction
The name of the architect has not been passed down. The barrel-vaulted hall church is walled up with limestone, the dividing elements are made of sandstone. It follows the designs of Reformed Bergisch sermon churches . In front of the south-facing entrance facade is a massive square tower, on top of which is a baroque tower dome with a lantern, a three-dimensional star of the cross and a swan. This is the special feature of a Lutheran church, since the Bohemian reformer Jan Hus (Czech. “Hus” corresponds to German “goose”) is said to have said on the way to the stake: “Today you roast a goose, but the ashes will become a swan resurrected. ”This was applied to Martin Luther by later generations.
In the middle of the tower facade was the richly sculptured main portal through which the church was entered. The single-nave church hall inside was lined with wooden galleries on three sides and was illuminated by five high arched windows on each side.
The principal pieces , altar, pulpit and organ, were arranged centrally one above the other and were richly decorated with white and gold painted carvings. The organ came from the Elberfeld organ builder Jacob Engelbert Teschemacher and was completed after his death by his student Gerhard Schrey. In its time it was one of the largest organs in the entire Rhenish region.
First plan of Wupperfeld with the church (1783)
Old church around 1790
The church in a view from 1820
The principal wall after 1878
The principal wall after 1930
destroyed old church
Entrance portal
The principal wall today
Destruction and rebuilding
On May 30, 1943, the church was ruined in a bomb attack on Barmen . Initially, the Lutherkirche am Heidt served as the community's only church that was not destroyed. As early as 1946, the restoration of the tower of the old church began, with interruptions the building was rebuilt in the following years. A first service in the makeshift church took place on September 3, 1950, and on June 21, 1953, the completely restored church was re-inaugurated with a simplified interior.
Community after World War II
The Lutheran congregation of Wupperfeld was divided into four congregations in 1967, which in 1984 each merged with parts of the Reformed congregation of Barmen-Gemarke. The old Wupperfeld church became the main sermon place of the United Evangelical Church Community Wupperfeld, the neighboring, originally reformed Immanuelskirche was abandoned. From January 2008 to April 2014, the Old Church Wupperfeld was the preaching place of the Wupperfeld district of the Evangelical Church Community Gemarke-Wupperfeld in Barmen . In February 2013 it became known that the community will be separating from the old church in Wupperfeld and the neighboring Nommensenhaus. On April 27, 2014, a Sunday parish service was held in the church for the last time. The building was dedicated and sold as a place of worship in 2017.
Principal wall
Galleries
1st gallery
Staircase
Staircase
Principal wall
Performance 2nd gallery, conducted by Winfried Pesch
Performance of the chancel
Church music tradition
As already mentioned, the Teschemacher organ was one of the largest organs in the Rhineland at the end of the 18th century. The choir of the parish of Wupperfeld, founded by Pastor Emil Frommel in 1866, was also one of the first mixed church choirs in German-speaking countries.
The church music activities in the Old Church Wupperfeld achieved national, partly international fame through the sixth Bach Association founded in Germany , the Wupperfeld Evening Music , the Wupperfeld Kantorei and their church music directors Gottfried Grote , Fritz Bremer, Hans Hulverscheidt , Winfried Pesch (40 years old) and Carsten Zündorf .
Numerous world premieres and first performances were made. The Wupperfeld evening music, which was founded and artistically directed by church music director Pesch and continued by Carsten Zündorf, attracted more than 100,000 listeners in over 500 concerts. Very often one worked together with internationally known musicians and the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra . In addition, well over 250 church musicians were trained in Wupperfeld within the Rhenish regional church between 1970 and 1990. In addition, Wupperfeld was the location of the Cologne University of Music in the subject organ . This made the Old Church Wupperfeld an important cultural center in the region.
From 2006, church musician Matthias Lotzmann designed the church music profile of the Old Church in Wupperfeld. The traditional “Wupperfeld Evening Music” was again expanded to 12 every year. This included the special formats “With Bach through the year”, “Orgel PLUS” and the heavily frequented “Music for the hour of Jesus' death” on the afternoon of Good Friday (four Passion settings of the Gospel of John since 2009). Since 2010, more than fifty top-class concerts with a wide range of programs have taken place. In addition, the old church in Wupperfeld was the preferred place of activity for the Bergische Kantorei Wuppertal, with the performance of two large oratorios every year. The church services of the local evangelical church community could have developed an inviting effect beyond the local community through the appropriate church music level; There were church services with performances of numerous sacred cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach as well as the formats “Abendlob” and the Anglican “Evensong” on Saturday evening. The financial endowment of this extensive and continuous work was finally made possible by the great commitment of the Musik und Kirche association . This showed that despite the dwindling financial resources, continuous church music work at a high level is possible. With the sale and deedication of the church in 2017/18, the great tradition of church music at this location also ended.
literature
- Heinrich Lücke: Episodes of pictures from 200 years of history of the Evangelical Lutheran parish Wupperfeld in Wuppertal-Barmen , Wuppertal 1978
- Fritz Mehnert [Hrsg.]: Oberbarmer Community History , Wuppertal 2002
- Georg Dehio: Handbook of the German art monuments. North Rhine-Westphalia I: Rhineland , Munich 2005, ISBN 3-422-03093-X
- Sigrid Lekebusch, Florian Speer : Churches and places of worship in Barmen , churches and places of worship in Wuppertal Volume 2 (= contributions to the history and local history of the Wuppertal, volume 43), Wuppertal 2008, ISBN 978-3-87707-721-4
Individual evidence
Web links
- Entry in the Wuppertal monument list
- Old church Wupperfeld as a venue for the music festival "Viertelklang"
- Organ music from and (partly historical) pictures of the old church in Wupperfeld
Coordinates: 51 ° 16 ′ 31.2 " N , 7 ° 12 ′ 45.8" E