Evangelical Church (Braunfels-Neukirchen)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Evangelical Church Neukirchen
View from the south

The Evangelical Church of Neukirchen , a district of Braunfels in Central Hesse , is a choir tower church from 1956. It was rebuilt after the fire of the previous medieval building. The building is a Hessian cultural monument due to its historical and urban significance .

history

The place is mentioned for the first time in 912 in a document that certifies a donation from King Conrad I to the Fulda monastery as "Niuunchirihha". In the pre-Reformation period Altenkirchen was the sending point and mother church of Braunfels and Neukirchen. The church belonged to the Archipresbyterat Wetzlar in the Archdiakonat St. Lubentius Dietkirchen in the Archdiocese of Trier . An early medieval hall church with a slightly retracted rectangular choir is assumed to be the first church in the village to replace the current church, which was converted into a choir tower church in the Romanesque period .

The Reformation was probably introduced in 1549 under Pastor Johannes Geissler from Bonbaden. In the post-Reformation period, Neukirchen was parish in Bonbaden .

The church was destroyed in a fire in 1956, which also destroyed the late Gothic paintings in the choir. It was rebuilt in an enlarged form at the old location by increasing the outer walls and extending the nave to the west.

A water damage in 2012 made a fundamental interior renovation necessary, the planning of the architect Ulrich Neuhof took over. In April 2013, during excavation work in the church choir, six skeletons were found that had been buried there and were still in their original position, including children. Separated from this, another burial was found in the nave. Using the radiocarbon method (C 14), the age was determined to be before 1000 AD. It is assumed that the six skeletons are the family grave of a high church lord of an early medieval church . In 2013 the church received new lamps, new windows, underfloor heating and other pieces of equipment. On January 12, 2014, the congregation celebrated the rededication.

Until the end of 2018, the parish belonged to the Braunfels church district, which was merged into the Evangelical church district on Lahn and Dill in the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland in 2019 . The parishes of Schwalbach, Neukirchen and Bonbaden, which had been in a parish office for most of the time since the Reformation , joined forces on January 1, 2020 to form the parish of Bonbaden-Schwalbach-Neukirchen.

architecture

Church tower from the east

The white plastered hall building, which is not exactly easted , but facing east-northeast, is raised on the northern edge of the village, in a prominent hillside location on a spur above the village. The cemetery wall of the surrounding area has been partially preserved.

The nave is covered by a hipped roof, to which two small dormers with triangular gables are placed in the south . It is illuminated in the south in two levels through small rectangular windows with lattice structure and in the north through corresponding windows in one level. A tall rectangular door in the west under a slated canopy that rests on two wooden beams opens up the church.

The slightly retracted church tower on a square floor plan has a small rectangular window to the east and south in the tower hall and is otherwise windowless. The clock faces of the tower clock are also attached to the east and south below the eaves . The tower shaft is covered by an octagonal, slated pointed helmet , which is equipped with eight small dormers in the lower area. The top of the tower is crowned by a tower knob and a ship, the masts of which form a cross. The church tower houses a triple bell. The bells by Johann Philipp Schweizer (1707) and Nicolaus Bernhard (1787) have not survived. After the Second World War, the community bought three new bells, including two from the Rincker company . To the north of the tower there is a sacristy under a towing roof .

Furnishing

Interior towards the organ gallery
View into the choir room

The interior of the ship is closed off by a flat ceiling and has a simple church interior . In the choir, wooden ribs are reminiscent of the original vault . The west gallery serves as the installation site for the organ. The gallery was shortened in 2013 by the carpenter Walter Dinges from Neukirchen and received a new parapet. Dinges also designed a new wood-sighted pulpit and the tripod stand for the baptismal bowl and the Easter candle.

In the choir, which is one step higher than the nave, there is an altar made of black Lahn marble . On the east wall under the stained stained glass window from 1956, which shows the risen Christ, a brass cross (1956) is attached, the transverse arm of which bears the inscription: "IT IS NOT HEALING IN ANOTHER" ( Acts 4:12  LUT ).

organ

Hardt organ from 1957

In 1836 Abicht reported on a small organ . In 1957 , August Hardt & Sohn built a new organ for the new church . The work comprises five divided registers on a manual and a pedal register . The disposition is as follows:

I Manual C – f 3
Gedackt B / D 8th'
Principal B / D 4 ′
Reed flute B / D 4 ′
Octave B / D 2 ′
Mixture B / D 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
Pedal C – d 1
Sub bass 16 ′

literature

  • Friedrich Kilian Abicht: The district of Wetzlar presented historically, statistically and topographically. Part: 2. The statistics, topography and local history of the district. Wigand, Wetzlar 1836, pp. 145-146 ( online ).
  • Folkhard Cremer (Red.): Dehio-Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler, Hessen I: Gießen and Kassel administrative districts. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-422-03092-3 .
  • Klaus Engelbach, Johanna Kranzbühler, Joachim Schleifring: Human skeletons in the Braunfels-Neukirchen church. In: Writings of the Association for Regional Prehistory e. V. issue 10, 2017.
  • Gerhard Kleinfeldt, Hans Weirich: The medieval church organization in the Upper Hesse-Nassau area (= writings of the institute for historical regional studies of Hesse and Nassau 16 ). NG Elwert, Marburg 1937, ND 1984, p. 192.
  • State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.); Reinhold Schneider (arrangement): Cultural monuments in Hesse. City of Wetzlar (= monument topography Federal Republic of Germany ). Theiss, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8062-1900-1 , p. 214.

Web links

Commons : Evangelical Church (Braunfels-Neukirchen)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse (ed.): Evangelical Church In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hesse
  2. ↑ a b Neukirchen. Historical local dictionary for Hessen. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on July 28, 2020 .
  3. ↑ Kleinfeldt, Weirich: The medieval church organization in the Upper Hessian-Nassau area. 1984, p. 192.
  4. ↑ Engelbach, Kranzbühler, Schleifring: Human skeletons in the church Braunfels-Neukirchen. 2017, p. 14.
  5. ↑ Klaus Engelbach, Michael Küthe: Witnesses to early Christianity in Neukirchen. From the Braunfels website, accessed July 28, 2020.
  6. ↑ Engelbach, Kranzbühler, Schleifring: Human skeletons in the church Braunfels-Neukirchen. 2017.
  7. ↑ Kirchenkreis an Lahn und Dill , accessed on July 28, 2020.
  8. ↑ Homepage of the parish , accessed on July 28, 2020.
  9. ↑ 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.
  10. ↑ Abicht: The district of Wetzlar presented historically, statistically and topographically. Part: 2. 1836, p. 145 ( online ).
  11. ^ 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 2: L-Z . Schott, Mainz 1975, ISBN 3-7957-1307-2 , p. 647 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 29 ′ 0.9 ″  N , 8 ° 26 ′ 13.2 ″  E