German Reformed Church (Erlangen)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Former German Reformed Church on Erlanger Bohlenplatz (2010)

The former German Reformed Church in Erlangen is a baroque hall church . From 1922 it belonged as the Christ Church to the Evangelical Lutheran Neustädter congregation and from 1953/54 it was used as a parish hall. After a renovation, the church has been under the name Kreuz + Quer - Haus der Kirche Erlangen since 2016 as an event location for the Evangelical Lutheran Dean's Office Erlangen for up to 350 people.

history

Historical view (around 1780)

Since 1693 there was in the Protestant Erlangen (old town and new town were separate towns) for the Huguenots expelled from France the French Reformed Church . Since the margrave fully financed its construction, he took the right to make the building available to the German Reformed community for their services when it opened. This was founded almost at the same time by the reformed Palatinate, who also had to flee due to religious denominations. The margrave guaranteed them the same rights in the newly founded city as those who had fled from France. This common use caused a dispute between the two Reformed congregations from the beginning, so that the German Reformed quickly wanted their own church. Since the union of the German Reformed with the French Reformed congregation in the early 1920s, the former French Reformed church has served the city's Evangelical Reformed congregation to this day .

The foundation stone for the construction of a German Reformed church in the east of Erlanger Neustadt (at today's Bohlenplatz ) took place on July 14, 1728, and was consecrated on August 1, 1734. The design was previously mostly attributed to the Bayreuth master builder and margravial agricultural inspector Johann David Räntz . Today, however, the margrave master builder Wenzel Perner († 1730) is considered the architect of the German Reformed Church in Erlangen. The construction was carried out by Johann Georg Kannhäuser , Peter Franz Navelot and Nikolaus Greim . The tower, which was only built up to the first floor , was to be increased by one floor in 1779 , but this was not done for reasons of cost.

As a result of the unification of the two Reformed churches, the second church became obsolete, whereupon the Evangelical-Lutheran Neustadt community acquired the church, now known as the Christ Church , in 1922. In the years 1953/54 it was redesigned to the parish hall. The organ was removed, and the clear, Baroque hall by withdrawal of a false ceiling made of reinforced concrete and installation destroyed by small spaces in the lower floor. A spacious spiral staircase was built in the north-west corner of the church building as a stairway to the 300 square meter hall on the upper floor, which is equipped with modern chandeliers .

In the years 1994 to 1998 and 2014 to 2016 the church building was renovated and redesigned again. However, the room layout from the 1950s was essentially retained. The Katharinensaal upstairs is also since the last renovation by an elevator barrier-free accessible. On October 22nd, 2016, the church building on Bohlenplatz was reopened as an event location under the name Kreuz + Quer - Haus der Kirche Erlangen. Every Sunday there are services of the Ecclesia Church , which was founded in Nuremberg in 2010 .

description

The former German Reformed Church in Erlangen is an unplastered hall building made of sandstone blocks facing east . The rectangular floor plan is 106 by 64 feet (approx. 32 × 19 meters); the height of the building is - without the 34 feet (approx. 10 meters) high roof structure - 42 feet (approx. 12.5 meters). The church building has five axes in the longitudinal direction (west-east direction) and three in the transverse direction (north-south direction).

The corners of the hall church are grooved. The outer walls are richly structured; accordingly, there are hardly any continuous wall surfaces. The window axes are separated by non-fluted , ionic pilasters . In between there are high, round-arched windows with segment-arched roofing in a correspondingly recessed wall field. The portals are located in the central axis on the north and west side; In the southern central axis, the two-story tower is located for cost reasons.

organ

The former organ of the German Reformed Church was created by the Nuremberg organ builder Johann Glis in 1733. The instrument was expanded and later moved to the newly built St. Mark's Church in the Sieglitzhof district as part of the renovation in 1953/54 . It is still in use there today. In 1987 the instrument was extensively restored by Johannes Rohlf and received a stylistically matching rear movement as a second manual movement as well as a new pedal movement , so that there are now 19 stops.

literature

Web links

Commons : German Reformed Church  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c d e Volkmar Greiselmayer: German Reformed Church. In: Erlanger Stadtlexikon.
  2. ↑ Erlanger Nachrichten on October 22nd, 2016: Erlangen: Resurrection of the parish hall as a cross + cross . Online at www.nordbayern.de ; accessed on January 19, 2020.
  3. ↑ Erlangen location . Online at ecclesia.church ; accessed on January 19, 2020.
  4. ^ Walter Opp: Organs. In: Erlanger Stadtlexikon.

Coordinates: 49 ° 35 ′ 47.5 ″  N , 11 ° 0 ′ 37.9 ″  E