Evangelical Reformed Church in Göttingen
The Evangelical Reformed Church in Göttingen is the house of worship of the Evangelical Reformed community of Göttingen , which has been around since the 18th century and has around 2,000 members . It is located in the Untere Karspüle in the north of the old town of Göttingen, in the Reichhelmschen Garten.
Description of the church
The plans for the building come from the university architect Johann Müller . The foundation stone was laid on May 10, 1752. On November 11, 1753, the first service was celebrated in the church. It is a simple, cubic hall building 20 meters long, 13.50 meters wide and 16 meters high. On the south-west side, a small, rectangular extension holds the stairwell to the pulpit. A 6.80 meter high tower rises on the hipped roof. The shape of the neo-classical building follows the type of temple, as the French Huguenot churches are called.
The white interior with around 204 square meters and eight meters in height, which has been preserved from the time of construction, is similarly sober. There is neither altar nor cross or holy pictures . Opposite the entrance wall of the room, the pulpit, placed above a simple table, dominates the room, the rising white benches are grouped together with the organ and pulpit in a circle around the center of the hall. The design often reflects the Reformed theology , which in particular strictly observes the biblical prohibition of images "You shouldn't make a picture ..." ( 2 Mos 20.4 GNB ) and therefore the church only as a place of preaching and assembly, but not as "holy." Place ”and also does not give the pastor any special position in relation to the other believers. The church has had an organ opposite the communion table since 1766 , which has since been replaced three times.
History of the community
As early as 1529, the city of Göttingen, together with the Electorate of Braunschweig-Lüneburg , in which it was located, became Lutheran and thus belonged to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover . With the influx of Huguenot religious refugees from France , however, Protestantism diversified in the region, and in the course of this, the first Reformed congregations also emerged in the Lutheran German states. After the Reformed congregation was initially only tolerated in private houses in Göttingen , the Protestant Reformed congregation was established in 1748 at the instigation of the Swiss Albrecht von Haller , who was then professor of medicine at the University of Göttingen .
In 1928 she was one of the founding members of the Federation of Evangelical Reformed Churches in Germany , but remained independent. In a strike ballot in 2011, the community decided to join the Evangelical Reformed Church.
Michael Ebener is currently the pastor of the congregation.
literature
- Jochen Pitsch: The Evangelical Reformed Community of Göttingen and its church ; Parish brochure from 1999
- Iris Manso: "Dedicated to God the Redeemer and to the religious services of the Reformed 1753". The late baroque Evangelical Reformed Church in Göttingen. At the same time dissertation 2007 at the University of Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2009, ISBN 978-3-525-28000-3
Web links
- For the establishment of a community and church on the homepage of the Ev.-ref. Municipality of Göttingen
Individual evidence
- ↑ Compare the information and the table of contents in the catalog of the German National Library
Coordinates: 51 ° 32 '12.5 " N , 9 ° 56' 7.8" E