Christ Church (Boppard)
The Christ Church is a Protestant church in Boppard built in the 19th century . It is the first new Protestant church in Boppard and was completed in 1851. It belongs to the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland .
location
The Christ Church was built south of the former Roman fort and west of the medieval city fortifications of the upper town on the so-called Angert. Federal highway 9 and the railway line on the left bank of the Rhine are immediately south of it . To the north, separated by a street, the Protestant day-care center and the community center border today. In the northwest, embedded in a park, are the remains of the Roman fortifications.
history
Until it was occupied by French revolutionary troops in the First Coalition War in 1794, Boppard was part of the Catholic Electorate of Trier . Even if religious freedom prevailed in Boppard for the first time after the Reformation during the following 20 years of belonging to the French Republic and the subsequent Empire , the city initially remained almost completely Catholic. In 1816 there were 27 Protestant people in Boppard, which made up less than 0.5 percent of the total population.
Only when nearby Koblenz became the capital of the Prussian Rhine Province in 1815 did the number of Protestant residents in Boppard gradually increase. Initially these belonged to the Protestant community in neighboring Sankt Goar , in the middle of the 19th century an independent church community gradually developed, in which the desire for its own church building soon arose. Around 1840 a hall was first rented and used as a prayer hall. When the evangelical parish received its own pastor, Friedrich Nees von Esenbeck, he acquired a plot of land opposite the evangelical rectory on the Angert in 1844 for the building of the church, and the city of Boppard then ceded a neighboring plot to the parish free of charge.
The original designs of the church go back to the royal Prussian building inspector Johann Claudius von Lassaulx and were revised by the Koblenz building inspector Althoff according to the personal wishes of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV . On August 26, 1850, the foundation stone was laid by Princess Augusta of Prussia , and the church was completed in autumn 1851. Since the Prussian king had taken over the entire cost of building the church and wanted to personally attend the inauguration ceremony, this did not take place until June 29, 1852. The name "Christ Church" can also be traced back to Friedrich Wilhelm's request.
This original building was built from visible rubble stones with a structure of gray sandstone and covered with natural slate. It was in the form of a baptistery with a portico in front of the west-facing entrance area. The church originally did not have a bell tower, but only a narrow roof turret with a cross and a single bell on the front gable tip. The interior of the church was spanned by a vault resting on four sandstone columns with gilded capitals , and the organ was located on a gallery above the entrance area. The church offered seats for 208 believers.
While the Protestant parish still had 296 members in 1861, after the Franco-Prussian War there was an increased influx of new Protestant citizens to Boppard, so that in 1880 the parish already had 817 members. Because of this growth, the original building quickly turned out to be too small. For this reason, an extension was carried out between 1885 and 1887 according to the design by the Boppard architect August Heins. The previous church space was basically left in place, but the choir was first removed and an extension was added to the east, which ended with the new choir. To the north and south of the nave, two inclined sacristy buildings were erected. The western vestibule of the church with the row of columns was basically left in place, but instead of the roof turret, a 42 m high, slender bell tower for a three-part bell was built in the middle. As a result of these renovations, the number of seats could be increased to 480. On October 23, 1887, the Christ Church was consecrated again as part of a solemn divine service.
Due to the new construction of the bypass for Bundesstrasse 9, which ran close to the Christ Church, the southern part of the vestibule had to be demolished from 1974 to 1976. It was then rebuilt, rotated 100 degrees to the north compared to the original shape. In the course of these construction measures, the northern vestibule was closed to the outside with the help of donated choir windows and converted into a chapel, and a new organ was purchased.
In March 1992 the church was temporarily closed due to construction defects. The renovation work started in the spring of 1993 was also used for a fundamental renovation. The interior was again painted in the neo-Byzantine style, while the outside of the church was given a light basalt plaster. In the southern vestibule, after its closure, a winter church was built with an artistically designed glass wall .
Furnishing
The organ was built in 1975 by the organ building company Gebr. Oberlinger (Windesheim). The slider chest instrument has 22 stops on two manual works and a pedal. The game actions are mechanical, the stop actions are electric.
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P.
The chiming of the Christ Church consists of three bells with the pitches f sharp, e and c sharp.
Monument protection
The Christ Church has been part of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2002 . In addition, it is protected as a registered cultural monument within the meaning of the Monument Protection and Maintenance Act (DSchG) of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate.
literature
- Hildegard Tschenett: 170 Years of Evangelicalism in Boppard - The Evangelical Church Congregation Boppard , Boppard 2016
- Heinz E. Missling (Ed.): Boppard. History of a city on the Middle Rhine . 3 volumes; Boppard 1997
- Johann Josef Klein: History of Boppard , Boppard: Keil, 1909 (online edition dilibri Rhineland-Palatinate)
Web links
- Description of the Christ Church on the website of the Protestant parish
- Christ Church at: regionalgeschichte.net
Individual evidence
- ^ A b c Johann Josef Klein: History of Boppard . 1909, p. 290 ff .
- ↑ a b History of the Christ Church on the website of the Protestant parish Boppard, accessed on March 28, 2018
- ↑ Information about the organ (seen on May 23, 2018)
- ↑ Description of the bells on the website of the Protestant parish Boppard, accessed on March 28, 2018
- ^ General Directorate for Cultural Heritage Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Informational directory of cultural monuments - Rhein-Hunsrück district. Mainz 2019, p. 9 (PDF; 1.7 MB).
Coordinates: 50 ° 13 ′ 50.2 " N , 7 ° 35 ′ 33.8" E