Wengern village church

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Wengern village church, tower side

The village church Wengern is a listed church building in the center of Wengern , a district of Wetter (Ruhr) in North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located just a few meters above the brook in the Elbsche valley in the area where the Opfersiepen and Schmalenbecke confluence , two smaller brooks. The neighboring buildings include the glue box and the mill (Henriette Davidis Museum) .

The church, which has been rebuilt and expanded several times, goes back to medieval origins. Today's building is characterized by stone- faced Ruhr sandstone masonry and has been part of Wetter's list of monuments since 1985 .

The village church is used by the Evangelical Church Community of Wengern, which belongs to the Hattingen-Witten parish of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia .

history

Origins

The Wengeraner church was first mentioned in a document in the middle of the 13th century in a letter from 1246, according to the contents of which it was then consecrated to St. Liborius . In addition, the chronicle of the parish of Boele indirectly shows that the church in Wengern was elevated to a parish church by the Archbishop of Cologne , Segevinus, at the end of the 11th century . It can therefore be assumed that there was at least one small stone church before these mentions, i.e. in the 11th century, which probably had a simple wooden chapel as a forerunner.

It is assumed by today's parish that the origin of the village church can be traced back to the time of the Saxon Wars of Charlemagne around 800. This is justified on the one hand with the regional history of Christianization ( e.g. in analogy to the nearby Syburg church on the Hohensyburg ) and with the naming after Liborius (Libori relics were brought to Paderborn Cathedral in 836 ) and on the other hand with the old field name Opfersiepen (see sacrifice and Siepen ). In this deeply cut brook valley, only a few hundred meters from today's church square, there would have been a pagan cult site of the Saxons , whose “holy meaning” was transferred to the first church building in the course of the Germanic mission . - However , there are no known architectural or archaeological findings that could support Wengern's assumptions about the early times of origin.

Further development

Church tower with cock and outside bell

In 1264, the simple hall church building , which had previously been influenced by the Romanesque style, was expanded in line with the Gothic style.

1543 joined the church almost closed the Reformation of Martin Luther in. The old name Liboriuskirche for the evangelical church remained until the late 18th century; it appears for the last time in the church registers in 1792 and was transferred to the Catholic "sister community" in Wengern and later to their church, which was consecrated in 1915.

In 1636 there was a plague outbreak in Wengern. The people from the neighboring village of Bommern who belonged to the parish were afraid of being infected and stayed away from the church services. In order to continue to reach all parishioners, the 91-year-old Pastor Johannes Fabricius held services in the open air. As a place for the plague service , he chose a place on the Deipenbecke , a stream halfway between Wengern and Bommern. To commemorate this mission, a memorial stone was erected there in 1843, which later sank into the floodplain . It was not until 1921 that the Fabricius stone was dug up again, given a solid base and two memorial plaques added in 1936. The Protestant parishes of Wengern and Bommern, which have now been separated, have been celebrating a joint Fabricius service here every year since 1924 .

The inscription on October 18, 1678 above the tower door, which has survived to this day, refers to the construction of the lower part of the church tower in 1678.

A tower clock was installed for the first time in 1740 . Three years later, in 1743, the tower was given a slate-covered top as a helmet .

In 1891 the building was thoroughly rebuilt and enlarged. It received u. a. a second small tower and two transepts , which, however, are not symmetrical, which means that only an incomplete basilica shape was achieved.

Skull niches in the south wall

In 1936/37 various modifications and optical changes were made, including a. In 1936, a painted wooden coffered ceiling was installed in the central nave . For touch-ups on the southern and western exterior masonry 1,937 more were skull niches walled with remains skull ( domes ) discovered. The niches were then left open, newly plastered and are still clearly visible today. Since the skull remains were lost in the course of the Second World War , dating is no longer possible. Nothing is left of the mortar that filled the niches until they were discovered. In addition, there are no comparable finds in Westphalia . The age and the specific meaning of the niches must therefore remain unclear. The historically most plausible assumptions point towards a special kind of memento mori .

In 1959 further changes followed in the interior of the church.

In 1972 an old clockwork from a tower clock from the Wetter town hall was installed in the church tower.

The building was last extensively renovated in 1994/95 .

Historic furnishings

The preserved furnishings of the village church can be assigned to different periods and styles. Noteworthy elements are:

  • a Romanesque font (~ before 1250),
  • some remains of late medieval wall paintings,
  • several old tombstones (~ 16th century), probably from the church's former cemetery,
  • a Romanesque triumphal cross above the altar, probably made in the 15th or 16th century based on an older model,
  • a wooden lectern ( ambo ) with a symbolic pelican figure , created in 1688 by Hildebrand Rebein,
  • a baroque font from 1689, created by the builder Hagedorn,
  • a carved baroque altar from 1714,
  • a baroque pulpit from 1746,
  • four bells : "Kleiner Anton" (cast in 1521, e ")," Kyrie "and" Gloria "(d" and h ′, both cast by Rincker in 1952 ) and the "Kinderglocke" (cast by Rincker in 1826, in nearby Sandberger School used as a school bell, moved to the church tower in 1952),
  • an organ from 1892, behind a stone man - organ from 1975 in the case of an old Sauer organ ,
  • a floral decorated wooden coffered ceiling from 1936,
  • two wooden statues of unknown age, which were rediscovered in the attic of the rectory in 1976 (one Peter and one Christ Pantocrator ).

  • Grave slab from 1565

  • Lectern from 1688

  • Altar from 1714

  • Pulpit from 1746

  • Organ prospectus from 1892 and coffered ceiling from 1936

local community

Chapel at the Wengern cemetery

The Wengern parish has existed as an Evangelical Lutheran congregation since 1543. At that time, under Pastor Hildebrand Schluck - as one of the first parishes in the County of Mark - it changed from the Roman Catholic Church to the Reformation.

Today it covers the area of ​​the Wetteran districts of Wengern and Esborn . It includes around 3800 people who are cared for by two parish offices (as of 2012). In addition to the village church, the congregation also owns a parish hall and some land for the assembly . It is responsible for the Protestant cemetery in Wengern , which is located almost 300 m west of the church in the forest behind the route of the Elbschetalbahn .

In addition, the kindergarten association of the church district operates two denominational kindergartens in the area of ​​the community (ev. KiGa Wengern Unterm Regenbogen and ev. KiGa Esborn Die kleine Strolche ).

See also

literature

  • Uli Mörchen: The Ev. Village church in Wengern on the Ruhr. ed. from the Ev. Parish Wengern, 2011. (48-page church guide, DIN A6 brochure)
  • Dietrich Thier (ed.): 450 years of the Reformation in Wengern. (Small writings on the history of the city of Wetter (Ruhr). Issue 3). City archive Wetter (Ruhr), 1993.
  • Andreas Heinrich Blesken: History of the Protestant parish Wengern in the context of the local church and Reformation history: origin, development, life. On the 400th anniversary of the introduction of the Reformation on Rogate Sunday 1943. ed. vd Evangelical Church Community Wengern (Ruhr), Bundes-Verlag , Witten 1959.

Web links

Commons : Dorfkirche Wengern  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Evangelical Church District Hattingen – Witten: Municipality of Wetter-Wengern.
  2. ↑ a b Uli Mörchen: The Ev. Village church in Wengern on the Ruhr. ed. from the Ev. Parish Wengern, 2011, p. 11/12
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Uli Mörchen: The Ev. Village church in Wengern on the Ruhr. ed. from the Ev. Parish Wengern, 2011, pp. 13/14
  4. ↑ a b Uli Mörchen: The Ev. Village church in Wengern on the Ruhr. ed. from the Ev. Parish Wengern, 2011, p. 4, p. 8/9
  5. ↑ Uli Mörchen: The Ev. Village church in Wengern on the Ruhr. ed. from the Ev. Parish Wengern, 2011, p. 10.
  6. ↑ a b c Uli Mörchen: The Ev. Village church in Wengern on the Ruhr. ed. from the Ev. Parish Wengern, 2011, pp. 39–41.
  7. ↑ Uli Mörchen: The Ev. Village church in Wengern on the Ruhr. ed. from the Ev. Parish Wengern, 2011, p. 15.
  8. ↑ a b Uli Mörchen: The Ev. Village church in Wengern on the Ruhr. ed. from the Ev. Parish Wengern, 2011, p. 17.
  9. ↑ Uli Mörchen: The Ev. Village church in Wengern on the Ruhr. ed. from the Ev. Parish Wengern, 2011, pp. 34/35
  10. ↑ a b Uli Mörchen: The Ev. Village church in Wengern on the Ruhr. ed. from the Ev. Parish Wengern, 2011, pp. 41–44.
  11. ↑ Compare the article in the Westfälisches Tageblatt of July 8, 1937.
  12. ↑ Uli Mörchen: The Ev. Village church in Wengern on the Ruhr. ed. from the Ev. Parish Wengern, 2011, p. 18.
  13. ↑ Compare the individual descriptions in: Uli Mörchen: Die Ev. Village church in Wengern on the Ruhr. ed. from the Ev. Parish Wengern, 2011, pp. 21–44.

Coordinates: 51 ° 24 '4.43 "  N , 7 ° 20' 31.33"  E