Trinity Church (Collinghorst)
The Evangelical Lutheran Trinity Church is a single-nave church with an attached west tower in Collinghorst , a district of the East Frisian community of Rhauderfehn . The Romano-Gothic brick church was built from 1250 and is therefore the oldest church in Overledingerland . The church was named after the medieval depiction of the Trinity that was uncovered during renovation work .
history
It is unclear whether there was a previous wooden building in Collinghorst. Construction of the church began in 1250, shortly after the start of clay bricks in Feldbrand in East Friesland . The oldest construction phase is the nave, which has a length of 14.20 meters and an internal dimension of 7.20 meters wide. The resulting one-room church had a floor made of tamped clay, had small, very high-seated windows, was provided with a wooden ceiling and had a Gothic pointed arch portal in the north and south . Originally these were used in processions, but after the arrival of the Reformation in East Frisia they were bricked up. Previously, the south entrance served the men as an entrance, while the women entered the church through the door on the north side. Until the end of the Second World War, the custom in Collinghorst remained that men and women sat strictly separated to the right and left of the aisle.
The windows were also bricked up over the centuries, but can still be clearly seen in the exterior masonry. The one next to the former portal is just as ogival as this one. From a previously existing hagioscope in the south wall, only a pointed arch made of four roof-shaped bricks is preserved.
Around 1350 the church received a tower, a choir was added and the nave was lengthened by one meter. This construction phase again shows clear elements of the Gothic, such as pointed arch windows . The interior of the choir has vaulted ribs with a rectangular cross-section. Paintings on the subject of the “ mercy seat ” can be seen on the choir walls . It is studded with strong buttresses on the outside. The front yoke has a cross rib vault, in the polygon the ribs converge at one point. The cap at the top of the vault is adorned with a painted representation of a mercy seat - a type of representation of the Trinity in Christian art - which is flanked by two angels with the instruments of suffering .
The tower was originally separated from the church by a narrow corridor and served as a defense tower , as shown by loopholes and chimneys in the tower. The corridor led to the lower entrance gate of the tower. Next to this gate there were notches through which the door could be defended. A hatch served to retreat into the upper tower rooms, which can be seen on the inside above today's church entrance in the masonry. Originally the tower had a gable roof . This was destroyed by a lightning strike in 1828 and replaced by today's tip in 1858.
The beam ceiling from the 13th century was replaced by the barrel vault that still exists today after the Thirty Years War . The old pews of the church were probably created during this time. A bench has been preserved from this, which bears the year 1768 on the carved door. Today it is set up as a church leadership's bench in the choir room. The current seating was built in as part of a church renovation in 1958. The old wooden floor was also replaced with a concrete floor.
The medieval paintings of the church were whitewashed for centuries after the Reformation. The church renovation in 1958 brought them to light again. On the north wall there is again a picture of St. Christopher , about half of which has been destroyed by the new window behind the gallery. The old consecration crosses were exposed in the apse , and a slogan on the south wall.
Interior
The oldest piece of equipment is probably the wooden cross with the Corpus Christi . The oak from which it was made was found in the Collinghorst moor and dated around the time of the birth of Christ.
It is unclear when the font was created. It comes from the pre-Reformation period and, like so many baptismal fonts in East Friesland, was made of Bentheim sandstone in the 13th century . A pastor is said to have removed him from the church. Then it served a Collinghorst pharmacist as a mortar and then in a garden as a flower stand. It was later secured by the local history museum in Westrhauderfehn and put back in the church after the Second World War. The copper bowl was made by master blacksmith Hinrich Willms. The previously used wooden baptism from 1911 now serves as a lectern with an attachment.
The altar once housed the relics of the church's patron saint , to whom it was presumably dedicated. It is unclear who this saint was. During the restoration in 1958, the clay vessel for the relic was found destroyed. The essay dates from 1659 and was donated by the church bailiff and poor ruler Cord Roskam. It was created after the congregation changed from the Reformed to the Lutheran faith and was extensively renovated in 2005. In the center is a depiction of the Lord's Supper and other scenes from the New Testament.
The pulpit was built in Loga (now a district of Leer) in 1816 . It originally stood in the middle of the south wall and was moved to its current location in 1958.
The sacrament device consists of a silver chalice with a silver wafer plate donated to the community in the 17th century .
Two of the four altar candlesticks were created in 1880. In 1958, the church council and the women's helpers Collinghorst and Glansdorf donated the other two. The oldest chandelier dates from 1672. The largest chandelier was donated to the church in 1800 by the brothers Albert and Hinrich Janssen Roßkam. The original third chandelier was bought in the year from the proceeds of a church concert by the men's choir founded in 1879. During the Second World War it had to be surrendered as material essential to the war effort and was replaced in 1988 after a donation by the Women's and Bazaar Circle.
The bell for the church was purchased in 1956. It consists of three bells from the Erding foundry near Munich.
organ
Little is known about the church's first organ . Presumably it was built in 1788 on a gallery in today's choir room. Today's organ stands, as is usually the case, on an organ gallery in the west. It was built in 1838 by master organ builder Johann Gottfried Rohlfs from Esens and is the last organ he built. The instrument has largely been preserved and its intonation and disposition already shows elements of the rising romanticism . The organ was placed under a preservation order in 1952 and renovated from 1955 by the organ building workshop Führer from Wilhelmshaven. The wind pressure was reduced and the intonation changed significantly, so that the organ lost its sonority. In the following years the instrument was badly damaged after the installation of an electric heater and the resulting dry air, so that it had to be renovated again in 2007. This time, master organ builder Bartelt Immer carried out a comprehensive restoration and thus also restored the original richness of sound.
See also
literature
- Hans-Bernd Rödiger, Menno Smid : Frisian churches in Emden, Leer, Borkum, Mormerland, Uplengen, Overledingen and Reiderland , volume 3. Verlag CL Mettcker & Söhne, Jever 1980, p. 102
- Collinghorst. Ev. Church. In: Georg Dehio : Handbook of German Art Monuments . Bremen Lower Saxony. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-422-03022-0 , p. 367 f.
- Annegret Schmidt-Bonhuis: Church leaders. Collinghorst 2005. 36 pp.
- Gottfried Kiesow : Architecture Guide East Friesland . Verlag Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz, Bonn 2010, ISBN 978-3-86795-021-3 , pp. 181–182.
Web links
- Homepage of the parish
- Ortschronisten der Ostfriesischen Landschaft : Collinghorst (PDF file; 34 kB)
- Genealogy forum: Collinghorst
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Annegret Schmidt-Bonhuis: Church leaders. Collinghorst 2005.
- ^ Ingeborg Nöldeke: Hidden treasures in East Frisian village churches - hagioscopes, rood screens and sarcophagus lids - overlooked details from the Middle Ages . Isensee Verlag, Oldenburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-7308-1048-4 , p. 141 f.
- ^ Ortschronisten der Ostfriesische Landschaft : Collinghorst, Rhauderfehn community, Leer district (PDF file; 34 kB), viewed on February 6, 2011.
- ^ Genealogy forum: Collinghorst - Rhauderfehn community, Overledingerland, Leer district ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), viewed on September 1, 2010.
Coordinates: 53 ° 9 ′ 38.1 ″ N , 7 ° 31 ′ 41.2 ″ E
