Evangelical Church (Münchholzhausen)

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Church in Münchholzhausen from the west
View from the southwest

The Evangelical Church in Münchholzhausen , a district of Wetzlar in the Hessian Lahn-Dill district , is a listed choir tower church with structures from different building eras. A narrow baroque nave extends to the west of the medieval fortified choir tower . The church got its present form in 1937 with a west tower and a new nave, which was added to the north.

history

Münchholzhausen is first mentioned in a document in 771 in the Lorsch Codex . It is unclear whether the donation refers to a previous chapel. The Lords of Kransberg originally held the right of patronage , which passed to the Counts of Solms-Braunfels at the end of the 13th century when the village was sold . The lords of Göns owned Münchholzhausen as an imperial fiefdom until it was divided between those of Schwalbach and von Kinzenbach in 1325 . For this year the church is documented for the first time and for the year 1342 a pastor. In 1399 the village was completely transferred to the von Schwalbach family until it fell back to Solms-Braunfels after their extinction in 1769. In the Middle Ages, Münchholzhausen belonged to the Archipresbyterat Wetzlar in the Archidiakonat St. Lubentius Dietkirchen in the Archdiocese of Trier .

Late Gothic sacrament niche (around 1500)

With the introduction of the Reformation , the parish switched to the evangelical confession in the middle of the 16th century. It was a branch of Kleinrechtebach since 1627, of Lützellinden since 1640, of Garbenheim to 1703 and of Dutenhofen since 1705 . The mediaeval chapel was probably replaced by a baroque nave in the 17th century. From 1710 to 1980 Münchholzhausen and Dutenhofen were parochial connected . Münchholzhausen was the only community in the otherwise Reformed Solms-Braunfels to belong to the Evangelical Lutheran denomination.

In 1937 the parish had a new nave built next to the old nave, which was about twice the width of the old one. A high church tower was built on the old nave to the west. A wooden beam ceiling was drawn into the church so that a community hall was created in the upper area and a youth room in the lower area, which was given its own entrance in the south. During a church renovation around 2002, a movable folding wall was installed between the two aisles , which enables either separate use or, for large events, the merging of the two rooms. The dark fittings and the ceiling were painted white and the pipe organ, which was in a poor condition, was replaced by an electronic organ.

From 1980 to 2012 both parishes had their own pastor. In 2013 the parishes were connected to a parish office and in 2017 they merged with around 3,000 parishioners to form the Evangelical parish Dutenhofen / Münchholzhausen with parish office connection to Lützellinden. The parish belonged to the Braunfels parish until 1977 and was added to the Wetzlar parish in 1977 because of its remote location, which in 2019 became part of the Evangelical Church District an Lahn and Dill of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland .

architecture

Medieval choir tower (right) and west tower from 1937 (left)
Former church hall, which is now used as a community room

The roughly east-facing hall is built in the old town center at an intersection. While the walls of the east tower and the old nave are made of unplastered quarry stone masonry from Grauwacke , the west tower and the new nave are made of brick and aerated concrete with a cladding of quarry stone.

The oldest part of the building complex is the squat, medieval choir tower on a square floor plan. Presumably, its height was lowered a little before it received its current pyramid roof. The upper floor served as a bell tower well into the 20th century. The slated western wall of the upper floor is made of half-timbered with partitions . The roof is crowned by a tower knob with an ornate cross and a compass rose with a weathercock. In the east and south of the tower there are two small square windows and small slit windows below the eaves.

The baroque nave probably dates back to the 17th century and is attached to the east tower in the same width. The installation of a three-sided gallery made the old nave very cramped in front of the new church. The choir tower and the original nave now form a single room due to the shared flat ceiling. The upper area of ​​the baroque roof structure was probably renewed in 1937 when the gable roof was replaced by a towing roof . In the south wall there are three tall rectangular windows that illuminate today's parish room. They were reduced in size in the lower area in 1937. The old entrance door with box lock is now used in the tower as access to the attic. The gravestone of Countess zu Sayn-Wittgenstein from 1828 is placed on the south side .

The west tower from 1937 on a square floor plan is slightly drawn in opposite the old nave and clearly towers above the east tower. It is divided into four floors by three circumferential projecting cornices, which become lower and lower towards the top. The west portal has a small slate wooden canopy. The tower hall serves as the entrance area for the new nave and the community room as well as the stairway to the organ gallery. A covered wooden external staircase used to be attached to the gable end of the old ship. The bell chamber on the top floor has square sound openings in round arch niches and houses a triple bell. The clock faces of the tower clock are attached below the sound openings. The small four-sided pointed helmet is crowned by a tower knob with a simple cross.

The spacious annex to the north, built in 1937 on a rectangular floor plan, is covered by a gable roof which, like the gable triangle, is slated. On the north side, five narrow rectangular windows, above which round windows are let in, illuminate the interior. The west portal with a round arched tympanum bearing the Christ monogram is flanked by two small rectangular windows. The very recessed, rectangular east choir is illuminated by two small tall rectangular lead glass windows that show the resurrection of Jesus Christ .

Furnishing

Interior with a view of the altar
altar

The interior of the ship is closed off by a flat wooden beam ceiling supported by a hanging truss . The wooden church furnishings are largely from the construction period. However, the original blue and red color of the ceiling from 1937 and the dark version of the pulpit, altar and gallery were painted over white during the last church renovation. The eastern part is raised by two steps and serves as a liturgical area. It ends in a narrow longitudinal barrel in which the altar and the eight-sided baptismal font are set up. A baroque sacristy door leads into the choir tower on the south side of the longitudinal barrel .

In the east wall of the old church there is a late Gothic sacrament niche with a lattice door under a keel arch with tracery and battlements from around 1500. It was probably attached to the side of the tower hall before the 1937 extension. The rededicated nave now serves as a community room and can be connected to the new nave by mobile folding walls .

In the northeast corner of the ship, the square wooden pulpit with color-contrasting profiles in red and gray is set up on a small square foot. On the front pulpit field, a dove is depicted in the rectangular panel between two simple pilasters . The simple church stalls leave a central aisle free. The west gallery, for which parts of the old side galleries were reused, serves as the installation site for the organ. Instead of the original coffered parapet panels, it has a docking parapet and rests on two square posts and two wall supports.

organ

Disused organ behind a baroque prospect

Around 1750, organ builder Dreuth probably built an organ with a manual . The raised, trapezoidal central tower is flanked by two pointed towers that protrude from flat fields without pilaster strips . The veil boards consist of gilded carvings from acanthus tendrils , which are also attached in a larger form to the side of the central tower. A profiled cornice closes off the main housing at the top and bottom.

The company Förster & Nicolaus Orgelbau replaced the organ work with a larger, two-manual system with electric pocket drawers behind the historic case. The new building comprised 15 stops on two manuals and pedal .

After the instrument became more and more prone to failure , it was decommissioned and replaced in 2002 by a Monarke electronic sacred organ from the Johannus company . To make room for the loudspeakers, which were placed in the historic organ case, a number of pipe sticks were cleared. The organ has 30 registers and 24 channels on two manuals and pedal.

Peal

The medieval choir tower originally housed the bells. The oldest bell dates from the pre-Reformation period. The Rincker company cast a bell in 1803, which broke and was re-cast in 1870. The same fate happened to her in 1892/1893. It was delivered to the armaments industry and melted down during the First World War. After the Second World War, Rincker cast two new bells which, like the old bell, were hung in the new west tower. The triple bell sounds in the Gloria motif. The bell expert of the Rhenish Church recommended in an expert opinion in 2019 that the historic bell should be largely spared. The presbytery then decided to buy a new bell to replace it.

No.
  		Casting year
  		Foundry, casting location
  		Diameter
(mm) 		Mass
(kg) 		Chime
  		inscription
  		image
 
1 1957 Rincker , Sinn a 1 Münchholzhausen Church (27) .jpg
2 1949 Rincker, Sinn h 1 "AFTER WAR AND SORRY AND HARD TIMES I CALL AGAIN TO BLISS" Münchholzhausen Church (26) .jpg
3 around 1520 unmarked 680 210 d 2 "Cousin I pass jesus br (e) is i ni gos *"

Münchholzhausen Church (25) .jpg

literature

Web links

Commons : Evangelical Church  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse (ed.): Evangelical Parish Church In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hesse .
  2. ↑ a b Münchholzhausen. Historical local dictionary for Hessen. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on February 6, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Abicht: The district of Wetzlar, presented historically, statistically and topographically. Volume 2. 1836, p. 438 ( online , accessed February 6, 2020).
  4. ↑ Kleinfeldt, Weirich: The medieval church organization in the Upper Hessian-Nassau area. 1984, p. 200.
  5. ^ Andreas Metzing: The Hessian areas of the Rhenish Church. In: Hermann-Peter Eberlein (ed.): Territorial churches and Protestant culture. 1648-1800. Habelt, Bonn 2015, ISBN 978-3-7749-3938-7 , pp. 187–196, here p. 187.
  6. ↑ Homepage of the parish : History of our parish , accessed on February 6, 2020.
  7. ↑ Web presence of the Evangelical Church District an Lahn und Dill , accessed on February 6, 2020.
  8. ↑ a b Hellmut Schliephake: Bell customer of the district of Wetzlar. In: Heimatkundliche Arbeitsgemeinschaft Lahntal e. V. 12th yearbook. 1989, ISSN  0722-1126 , pp. 5-150, here p. 139.
  9. ^ Dehio: Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler, Hessen I. 2008, p. 666.
  10. ^ Franz Bösken : Sources and research on the organ history of the Middle Rhine (=  contributions to the Middle Rhine music history . Volume 7.2 ). tape 2 : The area of ​​the former administrative district of Wiesbaden. Part 1: L-Z . Schott, Mainz 1975, ISBN 3-7957-1307-2 .
  11. ^ Bells plenum in Münchholzhausen , accessed on February 6, 2020.

Coordinates: 50 ° 32 ′ 58.6 "  N , 8 ° 34 ′ 37.4"  E