Bessunger Church
The Bessunger Church is a Protestant church in Darmstadt-Bessungen .
history
The oldest church building was probably built in the 7th or 8th century as the first parish church for the area.
The Bessung Church , first mentioned on June 10, 1002, was originally consecrated to John the Baptist according to the inscription on the oldest surviving bell from 1435 and according to the evidence of the existing St. John's altar , but later bore the patronage of St. Peter.
The Bessunger Church stood on an elevation in the middle of the oldest cemetery in Bessungen, which was in use from the Middle Ages until the opening of the new Bessunger cemetery in 1839. Some tombstones still remind of it today.
After 1369 the Bessunger church sank to a branch of the Darmstadt city church.
Only after the introduction of the Reformation was it raised again to an independent parish church and received the income from the dissolved altar of 10,000 martyrs in the city church. At that time the Bessung church was already in disrepair.
In 1559 and 1561 the church and rectory were repaired. In the years 1574–1576 the structural condition of the church was so bad that it had to be renewed by the Darmstadt master builder Jakob Kesselhut . This church building, which devoured the proud sum of 2,000 guilders and whose financing there were fierce disputes, survived - although it was repaired many times and damaged in the Thirty Years' War - until the second half of the 19th century.
The strong increase in population made an expansion of the church urgently necessary. In the years 1883/84, the single-nave village church was transformed into today's cross-shaped floor plan by adding two transepts. A new organ was purchased, the roof and the tower cross were repaired. The Darmstadt court painter August Noack painted the pulpit, which was also renewed.
In 1908/09, the interior was redesigned according to plans by Friedrich Pützer , a wooden barrel ceiling was installed and the floor was lowered. The nave was extended by 3 m to the west. Simultaneously, the "bridal gear" with were Art Nouveau - baptistery and the vestry built and built stairs to the galleries.
In 1960 and 1965 repairs were carried out again, the Art Nouveau painting from 1908 was removed, and the altar, galleries and floor were renewed. Bruno Müller-Linow designed a new Petrus altar window.
In 1967 a new organ by the Hamburg organ builder Rudolf von Beckerath was installed.
The last interior renovation took place in 2001.
literature
- Günter Fries et al .: City of Darmstadt. ( Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany , cultural monuments in Hesse .) Vieweg, Braunschweig 1994, ISBN 3-528-06249-5 , p. 441.
- Georg Haupt: The architectural and art monuments of the city of Darmstadt , 2 volumes, Darmstadt 1952–1954, pp. 295–297.
- Peter Engels: History of Bessungen . Justus von Liebig Verlag, Darmstadt 2002, pp. 62ff., 168f.
- Roland Dotzert et al .: Stadtlexikon Darmstadt. Konrad Theiss Verlag , Stuttgart 2006, p. 82.
Web links
- Helmut Laudert: History of the Bessunger Church. Ev. Petrusgemeinde, accessed on October 23, 2015 .
Coordinates: 49 ° 51 '29.9 " N , 8 ° 39' 2.3" E