Evangelical Church (Crainfeld)
The Evangelical Church in Crainfeld is essentially a Gothic hall church in the district of the same name in the municipality of Grebenhain in the Vogelsberg district in Hesse . The oldest parts of the church date back to around 1300, but today its appearance is largely shaped by the reconstruction after the destruction of the Thirty Years' War and especially the newer bell tower completed in 1860. This reaches a height of 48 m and is a highly visible landmark . The church is the parish church of the Crainfeld parish of the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau (EKHN) , which includes Crainfeld as well as Bermuthshain , Grebenhain and Vaitshain .
history
In 1011, dated 1020 by the Fulda monk Eberhard , a church was consecrated in Creinfelt by the Archbishop of Mainz , Erkanbald, in honor of St. Ulrich von Augsburg . Linked to this was the boundary description of the associated parish. This encompassed a much larger area than today's Protestant parish of Crainfeld. The parish Nieder-Moos and Ilbeshausen (until 1728), split off from the Riedeseln in 1524, as well as parts of the later parish Altenschlirf belonged to it. In 1342 an altar dedicated to St. Nicholas is mentioned in a document . On November 14, 1527, the last Catholic pastor, Ludwig Wagenhausen, was relieved of his office after a visit and replaced by the Protestant Andreas Nerzig. This introduced the Reformation in the parish of Crainfeld.
During the Thirty Years War, the Crainfeld Church was plundered and set on fire on June 1, 1622 when Christian von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel's troops were passing through . The church was rebuilt between 1625 and 1629 and renewed again in 1667, whereby the original Gothic vaulted ceiling of the nave was replaced by a flat ceiling supported by four oak columns . Only the choir retained its Gothic appearance. In 1666 the church received an organ for the first time. A new construction of the very old church tower was considered necessary by the then Nidda bailiff Gambs as early as 1683 , but was not initially carried out. In 1702, 1818 and 1833 the tower was repaired.
In 1858 the dilapidated bell tower was demolished and the tower with neo-Gothic shapes, which still stands today, was built in its place and inaugurated in 1860. In the following years the nave was renovated and rebuilt until 1865. The medieval sacristy that was still preserved was removed. Another large-scale church renovation took place in 1934, the interior of the church was given its present-day appearance.
In 1964 the church received a new heating system. During the construction work, several graves of former clergymen, including two well-preserved grave slabs, were discovered under the floor in the nave. The slate roof of the tower was replaced by a copper roof in 1971, as slate slabs were repeatedly torn off the 48 m high tower and thrown downwards during storms. In 1981 the medieval baptismal font, which had been removed from the church in the 19th century, was put back inside. In 1990 the church received a new organ, and in 1991 another bell was added to the previous three bells.
In the hurricane Kyrill at the beginning of 2007, the church tower roof was severely damaged. After the repair work, further damage to the tower and the church roof was found, which had to be repaired in the following years.
architecture
The church is located in the center of the street village of Crainfeld. Opposite it is the Edelhof , the former residential and administrative building of the Landgrave Hesse-Darmstadt Oberschultheissen. The church courtyard wall runs around the church and is several meters high in the southern part due to the sloping terrain. Until its abolition in 1825, the old Crainfeld cemetery was around the church. Almost all of the earlier tombstones and monuments have now been removed.
Due to its history, the Crainfeld Church today shows the architectural features of three different epochs.
Today's church tower in neo-Gothic style was inaugurated on September 16, 1860 after around two years of construction. He is due to its towering shape and the cusped spire , m with an overall height of 48, commonly known Vogelsberger pencil called. The tower also contains the main entrance portal with a staircase in front of it. The original bell tower was, as a condition plan of the church drawn up in 1858 shows, of a clearly compact shape. In terms of style, it seems to have been built in the transition from the Romanesque to the Gothic.
The plastered nave with its rectangular windows and the flat ceiling can be traced back to the reconstruction of the church from 1625 to 1629 after the original vaulted ceiling collapsed in the fire on June 1, 1622. Gothic forms, on the other hand, still show the two entrance gates on the south side. One of the wickets is decorated with a depiction of a pelican who, according to the Physiologus, feeds its young with its own blood. The other portal also shows the representation of the lioness after the physiologus, whose cub is brought back to life.
The choir survived the destruction of the church in the Thirty Years' War largely unscathed. It still has the original ribbed vault from the 14th century and pointed arched windows with tracery .
The roof of the church has a slate covering , which the spire had until 1971, but was then given a copper roof due to damage from the weather.
Furnishing
The nave is closed off by the self-supporting flat ceiling, while the choir is vaulted by the vault with red cross ribs. The interior is relatively simple. The three-sided wooden gallery dates from 1667 and rests on corbels and several eight-sided marbled supports. It was lowered to its current level in 1934. The parapets are painted with a depiction of the baptism of Jesus and scenes from the Passion . They also contain depictions of Moses , the apostles and two evangelists . In 1934, memorial plaques for those who died in the parish in the First World War were also placed in the gallery parapets.
The pulpit, richly decorated with putti heads , twisted corner columns and shell niches, also dates from 1667. It is carried by the figure of Moses with the tablets of the law, comparable to a caryatid . The masonry altar in Gothic form bears a crucifix from the middle of the 17th century. Behind in the choir are two figures of Joseph of Nazareth and Mary . During the renovation of the church in 1964, wall paintings in the choir were discovered, but not documented and painted over again. The choir stalls are neo-Gothic. The oldest part of the furnishings is the Romanesque font, which has only been in the church since 1981.
The organ in the gallery dates from 1990 and was built by the Giengen organ manufacturer Gebr. Link in Giengen an der Brenz . It was preceded by an organ built in 1895 by the Förster & Nicolaus Orgelbau company in Lich . The church was first equipped with an organ in 1666.
Bells
The church bell now consists of four bells. The oldest was cast by Gottfried Köhler from Kassel in 1627 when the church was being rebuilt. The next two younger bells were cast in Gießen in 1775 and 1799 , the former by Johann Philipp Henschel and Friedrich Wilhelm Otto, the latter also by Friedrich Wilhelm Otto. These two bells had to be delivered to be melted down for armament purposes during World War II . They were brought to the bell cemetery in Hamburg-Veddel , but unlike the majority of the bells stored there, they were no longer melted down and were returned in 1948. The fourth bell was only purchased in 1991 and cast in Sinn by the Rincker bell and art foundry .
literature
- Wilhelm Diehl : Construction book for the Protestant parishes of the sovereign lands and the acquired areas of Darmstadt. (= Hassia sacra; 8 ). Self-published, Darmstadt 1935, pp. 366–369.
- Friedrich Müller: Crainfeld. A contribution to its history. A home book 885–1985 . Brühl, Giessen 1987
Web links
- Crainfeld. Historical local dictionary for Hessen. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on October 4, 2014 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 29 ′ 6 ″ N , 9 ° 20 ′ 55.2 ″ E