Evangelical Church (Dönberg)
The Evangelical Church Dönberg is a Protestant church in the Wuppertal district of Dönberg .
history
The traditional rural population of Dönberg was initially looked after by the Reformed community of Langenberg due to the Protestant majority . In the absence of a settlement core in the place, which mainly consists of individual farmsteads, no community life could develop. The construction of their first school house in 1780 enabled the Dönberg Christians to hold a Bible study for the first time on June 12, 1831, which is seen as the laying of the foundation stone for the later formation of a church community. Since then, this Bible study has been held weekly on Sundays by two seminarians from the Rheinische Missionsgesellschaft , who later moved the lesson to one of Dönberg's sixteen taverns due to the increasing number of visitors.
In February 1832 the construction of an own chapel or a separate community hall was considered for the first time, but this did not seem possible due to the poor population. However, extensive donations from the population and the participation of the faithful in the construction enabled the construction of the first chapel, which was inaugurated on July 8, 1832. The chapel held about 400 people and cost 741 thalers . Since the chapel soon proved to be much too small, the request for an extension was expressed, which was not possible due to the continued high costs. It was only thanks to the personal commitment of Pastor Johann Friedrich Becker from Barmen that an annex to the chapel could be inaugurated in 1835, the cost of which was only 335 Taler, which was primarily thanks to the active participation of the Dönbergers.
Gradually, the participation of the Dönbergers in parish life sank again, so that apart from the Sunday service no other activities in the chapel were known. Therefore, the chapel presented itself in 1844 as unusable and in need of renovation, the costs would have far exceeded those of a new building. It was decided to replace the chapel with a real church, and the population also showed a new interest in community life. Generous donations from Elberfeld and Langenberg made it possible to lay the foundation stone for the new church on July 22nd, 1845, although not even half of the projected costs had been collected when construction began. The uneven building site right next to the chapel initially turned out to be unusable, but the Dönberg choir showed great commitment to the leveling of the hilly property.
The new church was inaugurated on August 20, 1846. Despite the stormy weather that day, the new church and the old chapel were full, and dozens of people gathered between the buildings to attend the dedication ceremony; the number of visitors is retrospectively estimated at 4,000.
With the construction of the church, a permanent settlement center was formed for the first time in Dönberg, which is still the center of the village Dönberg today. The old chapel, with the exception of the younger extension, was sold to a landowner in February 1848, who converted it into a barn. The younger part was extensively renovated by the community and converted into a community hall with a small apartment on the upper floor. In 1849 it was decided for the first time to set up a regular children's church service, one of the first in today's Wuppertal. In 1859, the parish of Langenberg set up its own parish vicariate in Dönberg, and Dönberg was split off into its own parish in 1872. In 1882 a church tower with a two-part bell was erected.
The new election of the presbytery scheduled for July 23, 1933 did not bring the desired success for the Dönberg German Christians ; Over half of the elected presbyters sided with the Confessing Church . The presbytery officially joined the confessional community on November 16, 1934. On May 10, 1940, the congregation had to make its parish hall available as a writing room, and parish work was moved to the parsonage . On the Sunday of the Dead in 1941, a memorial service was held for the first time for the fallen parishioners. From then on, the Dönberg pastor also had to serve the community of Neviges . During the last three weeks of the war, the church was confiscated and served as a warehouse for ammunition and supplies, with a dead horse also being deposited in the pews. The remaining church bell was allowed to ring during the services, which from then on took place in the Kaiserswerther nurses' recovery home on Horather Strasse. In the first months after the war, the area in front of the church was rented to the parishioners as an allotment garden, which was leveled in 1951 in favor of the public playground that still exists today. From April 1947 a new church bell supplemented the last unanimous peal. The old clubhouse was replaced by a new parish hall on Kirchplatz, an early work by the Wuppertal architect Friedrich Goedeking, which was inaugurated on March 16, 1958. The church was rebuilt by 1968, the chancel was widened and a modern heating system was installed. The church got a new, three-part bell.
The Dönberg Church has been a listed building since September 14, 1984 for "folklore, urban historical and scientific reasons".
Building description
The church is a simple hall church built entirely from coarse sandstone , which in its architectural design language largely echoes the Bergisch Baroque , but does not follow any particular style. The 25 meter long nave is divided on the sides by five simple window axes and is aligned with the choir to the north. The square, copper-covered church tower houses a three-part bell and has a tower clock on the south side above the entrance portal. The interior is characterized by the particularly light design with white walls and light church pews, whereby the slightly darker, raised altar area stands out. A small gallery with seating that rises like a staircase is located on the south side, where the organ is also housed. Behind the altar area there is a small choir gallery, which is located above the sacristy area.
organ
A first organ for the church was purchased on February 2, 1869 by the congregation from the Reformed Parish of Schwelm . It was a single-manual instrument from the workshop of Jacob Engelbert Teschemacher , which had been bought in 1767 by the Schwelmer Stephanuskirche community. Until the inauguration of the new organ on June 27, 1869, a harmonium was used, which was later raffled off. In 1912 the instrument was overhauled and cleaned by Koch in Ronsdorf, and a 16′-sub-bass was added. In 1922 the action was switched to pneumatics. The instrument survived the war unscathed, the last disposition remained:
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P, super octave coupling II / I
When the church was redesigned, the organ was given to the parish of Herzkamp, where it was stored until 1981. Today it is in the Catholic Church of Sankt Laurentius in Elberfeld, where it has been used as a choir organ since 1982 after extensive renovation work.
Since 1970 there has been an organ in the church by the Hamburg organ builder Alfred von Beckerath with the following disposition:
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- Coupling: II / I, I / P, II / P
literature
- Rolf Müller: Dönberg - A parish on the edge. Wuppertal 1990.
Web links
- Entry in the Wuppertal monument list
- Evangelical parish Dönberg
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Church of the Ev. Dönberg parish
- ↑ Evangelical Parish Dönberg - Church. Retrieved on March 14, 2018 (German).
- ↑ 50 Years Organ. Retrieved March 14, 2018 .
- ^ Joachim Dorfmüller : 300 years of organ building in Wuppertal. Evangelical Church Dönberg, p. 64 ff
Coordinates: 51 ° 17 ′ 56 ″ N , 7 ° 9 ′ 46 ″ E