Evangelical Church (Bellersheim)

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Church from the southeast

The Evangelical Church in Bellersheim , a district of Hungen in the district of Gießen ( Hessen ), was built from 1810 to 1813 in the classicism style. The transverse church with central risalits on the long sides and a three-storey east tower from 1844 is a defining feature of the town and a Hessian cultural monument .

history

Interior facing northwest

In the 11th century Berstadt was the mother church of Bellersheim, which probably formed a daughter parish around 1250. In 1269 a pastor Ernestus is proven. In the 14th century, several altars were donated, each of which was served by a clergyman. In the late Middle Ages, Bellersheim belonged to the Archdeaconate of St. Maria ad Gradus in the Archdiocese of Mainz in the district of Berstadt.

In addition to the castle-like parish church, which was consecrated to Our Lady and had two altars, the middle castle, completed in 1390, one of the three local castles of the Bellersheim family, a chapel with three altars and its own pastor. It was abandoned as a place of worship in the post-Reformation period. There was also a chapel "Zum Heiligen Kreuz" with a bell at the so-called Pentecostal grove in front of the village, which was dilapidated in 1567 and was probably also abandoned at the end of the 16th century.

With the introduction of the Reformation in 1554, Bellersheim switched to the Lutheran creed. Under Konrad von Solms-Braunfels , the church was reformed in 1584 . The first Protestant pastor was Philipp Landvogt in the 1560s.

The old parish church was abandoned at the beginning of the 19th century and was demolished in 1810. Using stones from the abandoned Arnsburg Monastery , a new church was built in 1812 according to plans and under the supervision of Hermann Philipp Spahr. The foundation stone was laid on May 1, 1812, a little higher and further northeast of the previous building. The roof structure was opened on August 16, 1812, the altar was erected on August 3, 1813 and the pulpit was erected on October 15, 1813. The new church was consecrated about a week later. The cost was 9,155 florins. Originally the nave had a hipped roof on both sides. Weather vanes with an arrow and a sun made of sheet metal were attached to the two rooftops, which were removed in the course of the new tower. The old, free-standing tower on the southwest corner initially remained in place until April 2, 1842, but was then demolished due to dilapidation and replaced by a new east tower from 1842 to 1844 for 8189  florins .

The pulpit originally stood with the altar and the organ on the central axis and was attached to the left in the course of the new organ building in 1867, following the Empire style . For the new location of the organ in the annex it had to be completely rebuilt. In 1912 the interior and exterior were renovated, which included restoring the plastering and painting the interior. In addition, new ovens were installed and the church was electrified. The roof and windows were badly damaged in a bombing raid on Christmas Eve 1944. In 1948 the community had the church roof renewed, the south-west side of the tower re-covered and new bells poured. After completing the roofing work in the summer of 1949, the interior renovation and the renewal of the exterior plaster followed in 1950. During the extensive interior renovation between 1979 and 1982, the pulpit, altar, organ case and stucco ceiling were exposed, the wooden floor was redesigned and new church stalls were purchased for 210,000 DM . The church tower was re-encrusted in 1988 and received new sandstones and a new external plaster. In 1990 the exterior of the nave was renovated. The wooden windows were renewed in 2007. From February to May 2015, the church council granted a Syrian refugee sanctuary .

architecture

Church from the north

The east- facing church is raised in the center of the village on a ground plan of 21 × 14 meters. According to the Dutch Reformed tradition, the sermon church was designed and built as a transverse church by a Solms master builder. The Evangelical Reformed Church in Langsdorf, 30 years older, served as a model .

The plastered church with corner blocks made of Lungstein , some of which has medieval stonemasons' marks, is designed on two floors and is closed by a hipped roof. The southern, symmetrical face is highlighted by a three-axis risalit with a flat triangular gable. On the north side, the gabled central projection is narrower than on the south side. There it protrudes by 3 meters, on the south side only 0.14 meters, as the north side houses the sacristy on the ground floor and a room for the organ open to the church on the upper floor. Rectangular windows with walls made of red sandstone illuminate the interior in two levels corresponding to the inner gallery. The windows have a flat arch on the inside . Three rectangular portals with red sandstone walls in the south and east as well as in the west side of the tower open up the church, the south portal is gabled, the portals in the south and east have an architrave profile, the west portal with smooth walls, the eaves made of wood.

The slender east tower on a square floor plan on the narrow side of the church is divided into three floors of different heights by cornices. The eight-sided pointed helmet has a circumferential iron railing with stone consoles and is crowned by a tower button and a simple cross. The basement has a rectangular window to the south and north, the middle floor has a round window and the upper floor has round-arched sound holes for the bells on all sides .

In front of the church, a memorial from 1922 commemorates those who died in the First World War. A woman with a small child and a wreath of honor kneels on a concrete block bearing the names of the deceased.

Furnishing

Axially aligned interior
pulpit

The interior is closed off by a flat ceiling with a throat and is simply furnished in accordance with Reformed tradition. It is dominated by olive green, gray and brownish red colors. Almost all of the furnishings date from the time it was built.

The three-sided, coffered gallery on the west, south and east walls rests on square, red-brown marbled wooden posts of the Tuscan order . The galleries are on the south wall. Altar and organ are aligned axially. A glazed wooden wall under the organ closes the sacristy.

The polygonal, wooden pulpit on the western north wall has a high pulpit staircase and a small sound cover. The white, cuboid altar stands on a profiled base and is painted with a golden garland on each side. The black marble slab was originally a grave slab from Arnsburg Monastery, which was reworked for the altar.

Like the galleries, the wooden chairs in olive green are aligned in three directions on the northern central axis.

organ

organ

Heinrich Leicht from Gießen built the first organ in the church in 1814. In 1860 it was in need of repair. The community decided to build a new organ and commissioned Johann Georg Förster to do it in 1863 . Since the organ loft in the large northern niche was not completed until October 1867, Förster installed the organ in 1868. The prospect pipes delivered in 1917 , which had been provisionally replaced by zinc pipes, were reconstructed with tin pipes in 1992. The parapet organ has 15 registers, which are divided between two manuals and a pedal, and mechanical cone chests . The three-part prospectus is designed in the style of Anglic neo-Gothic . The raised central pipe field is flanked by two lower rectangular fields, which are crowned by battlements and slender towers. Each field is closed off by a coupled round arch in which quatrefoil-like motifs are painted. The instrument has been preserved in unchanged form and has the following disposition:

I Manual C – f 3
Quintatön 16 ′
Principal 8th'
Hollow flute 8th'
Bourdon 8th'
Octave 4 ′
Flauto dolce 4 ′
Octave 2 ′
Acuta IV-V 3 ′
II Manual C – f 3
Flauto amabile 8th'
Dolce 8th'
Gemshorn 4 ′
Flauto closed 4 ′
Pedal C – d 1
Principal bass 16 ′
Sub-bass 16 ′
Octave bass 8th'

Bells

The tower houses a four-way bell. A bell that Friedrich Otto had cast in Gießen in 1835 was delivered to the armaments industry in 1917 and replaced in 1926 by two new bells from the Rincker brothers . During the Second World War, both and a bell were handed in by Peter Schweitzer from Werdorf (inscription: " SOLI DEO GLORIA 1718 [two sage leaves] In GOD'S NAME FLOS ICH PET. SCHWEITZER VON WERDORF GOS MICH "). The remaining bell by Johann Philipp Bach from Hungen (inscription: " In GOTTES NAHMEN FLOS ICH IOHANN PHILIPP BACH VON HUNG / EN GOS MICH ANNO 1776 MR BINGELIUS INSPECKTER / Pastor JOHAN GEORG BOPP H. S. SCHULTHEIS. ") Is no longer available, a trade-in for the new bell is conceivable. In 1948, the Rincker brothers cast a four - bell ring with the tone sequence es 1 -g 1 -b 1 -c 2 in the watch-up motif .

literature

  • Georg Dehio : Handbook of German art monuments , Hessen I: Administrative districts of Giessen and Kassel. Edited by Folkhard Cremer, Tobias Michael Wolf and others. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-422-03092-3 , p. 95.
  • 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. 167–170.
  • Johannes Fritzsche (Ed.): 200 years of the Evangelical Church in Bellersheim. Festschrift for the church anniversary. Bellersheim 2012.
  • State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.); Karlheinz Lang (Red.): Cultural monuments in Hesse. District of Giessen I. Hungen, Laubach, Lich, Reiskirchen. (= Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany ). Theiss, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-8062-2177-0 , p. 103 f.
  • Ulrich Schütte (Ed.): Churches and synagogues in the villages of the Wetterau. (= Wetterau history sheets 53 ). Verlag der Bindernagelschen Buchhandlung, Friedberg (Hessen) 2004, ISBN 3-87076-098-2 , p. 352 f.
  • Heinrich Walbe : The art monuments of the Gießen district. Vol. 3. Southern part . Hessisches Denkmalarchiv, Darmstadt 1933, p. 5 f.
  • Peter Weyrauch : The churches of the old district of Giessen. Mittelhessische Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Gießen 1979, p. 24 f.

Web links

Commons : Evangelische Kirche Bellersheim  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse: Cultural monuments in Hesse. 2008, p. 104.
  2. ^ Gerhard Kleinfeldt, Hans Weirich: The medieval church organization in the Upper Hessian-Nassau area. (= Writings of the institute for historical regional studies of Hesse and Nassau 16 ). NG Elwert, Marburg 1937, ND 1984, p. 19.
  3. ^ Diehl: Construction book for the Protestant parishes. 1935, p. 167f.
  4. ^ Weyrauch: The churches of the old district Gießen. 1979, p. 24.
  5. ↑ Bellersheim. Historical local dictionary for Hessen. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on October 2, 2013 .
  6. ↑ a b Fritzsche (Ed.): 200 years of the Evangelical Church in Bellersheim. 2012, p. 18.
  7. ^ Diehl: Construction book for the Protestant parishes. 1935, p. 168.
  8. ^ Diehl: Construction book for the Protestant parishes. 1935, p. 169.
  9. ↑ (us): "It is justified and human". After church asylum in Bellersheim: Young Syrians can stay in Germany , Gießener Allgemeine, Saturday, May 30, 2015, number 123, p. 37.
  10. ↑ a b State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse: Cultural monuments in Hesse. 2008, 103.
  11. ↑ a b c d e f Walbe: The art monuments of the district of Giessen. 1933, p. 6.
  12. ↑ a b c Dehio-Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler, Hessen I. 2008, p. 95.
  13. ^ Fritzsche (Ed.): 200 years of the Evangelical Church in Bellersheim. 2012, p. 67.
  14. ^ Fritzsche (Ed.): 200 years of the Evangelical Church in Bellersheim. 2012, p. 51.
  15. ^ Fritzsche (Ed.): 200 years of the Evangelical Church in Bellersheim. 2012, p. 22 f.
  16. ^ Franz Bösken , Hermann Fischer : Sources and research on the organ history of the Middle Rhine (=  contributions to the Middle Rhine music history . Volume 29.1 ). tape 3 : Former province of Upper Hesse. Part 1: A-L . Schott, Mainz 1988, ISBN 3-7957-1330-7 , p. 106 .
  17. ^ Fritzsche (Ed.): 200 years of the Evangelical Church in Bellersheim. 2012, pp. 44-48.

Coordinates: 50 ° 27 ′ 12 ″  N , 8 ° 50 ′ 24 ″  E