Evangelical Church (Gonterskirchen)

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South side of the church
Church from the west

The Evangelical Church in Gonterskirchen , a district of Laubach in the district of Gießen ( Hesse ), is an early Gothic hall church from the 13th century. The Hessian cultural monument with its massive choir tower characterizes the townscape.

history

The fortified church was built between 1250 and 1270 under the influence of the building works of the Arnsburg monastery . In 1306 a vicar is mentioned, which indicates the existence of the church. The church was originally a branch of Laubach and was raised to a parish in 1366 , but remained a subsidiary of Laubach. In the 15th century, Gonterskirchen belonged to the Archdiakonat St. Johann in the Archdiocese of Mainz in the Laubach district. With the introduction of the Reformation, the parish switched to the evangelical creed. Heinrich Bein was the first Lutheran pastor to work here from 1529 to 1581.

At the beginning of the 17th century, the stone vaults of the medieval nave were removed and the walls raised to build galleries. The round and pointed arch windows of the church and the passage from the choir to the sacristy were walled up and an east door was broken out instead. The sacristy was used as a plum kiln for some time . In 1769/1770 and 1783/1784 extensive work followed on the tower roof and in 1813/1814 and 1823 on the church roof. When the church was in need of renovation in 1860, the congregation had no money. The pastor decided not to build his dilapidated pigsty, so that the money could be used for the renovation. When the south wall of the nave got a crack, the church was supported by two buttresses in 1879 , the walled-in choir passage was exposed again, the roof of the sacristy was renewed and it was put back to its original purpose.

In 1908 the community had a church stove installed and the two leaky church doors replaced. In 1930 the northern annex to the west of the sacristy was built, which could accommodate 70 additional visitors. The structurally damaged south wall of the nave was rebuilt and the church roof renewed. In the course of this, an interior restoration was carried out and warm air heating installed. Due to sponge infestation , new church stalls were purchased for the women in 1935, the wooden floor was removed from the sacristy and the sacristy roof was resurfaced. The missing tower cross from 1770 was renewed, including the weathercock, made of sheet copper. In 1963 a warm-air oil heating system was installed, an exterior restoration in 1965 and an interior restoration in 1968. After the roofs of the tower and ship burned down in 1979, they were rebuilt in their old form, but one meter lower. The destroyed bells were replaced and a broken bell was placed in front of the southern tower portal as a warning. The Protestant parish of Gonterskirchen has been parochial with Ruppertsburg since 2017 and is part of the Grünberg dean's office.

architecture

South portal with stepped niche in the choir tower

The white plastered hall church is built on a rectangular floor plan, raised on a slope on the northeastern edge of the village.

The mighty, square, Gothic choir tower, which was built between 1250 and 1270, has a tent roof with dormers for the bells, at the top a tower knob, cross and weathercock. It is the same width as the nave. The massive brick tower shaft has been largely preserved. The tower hall has a ribbed vault with wide pear ribs that rest on pointed consoles. The ogival opening of the south portal, which originally served as a priest's gate, is framed by a stone wall with a blind niche in the unusual shape of a stepped gable . The three lancet windows on the ground floor have zweibahniges, early Gothic tracery and robe of red sandstone, the three windows on the upper floor, the original bell storey, coupled sound holes. On the south side, to the right of the sound window, is the black dial of the tower clock from 1908 with gold-plated hands. The choir tower has a tent roof with sound dormers on all four sides. The bell house houses a triple bell that was cast in 1980. Tower pommel, cross and weathercock form the end. There is no indication of a tower bypass.

The present-day, essentially medieval nave on a rectangular floor plan comes from a later renovation. The gable roof over the ship has a crested hip in the west . The church interior is lit through high rectangular windows and a stepped west portal (mid-13th century) made of profiled lung stone is accessible. A simple, ogival south entrance is now blocked inside by a discarded bell. Two narrow lancet windows in the south wall and one bricked up in the north wall come from the original building. At the corners of the west side there are two diagonally placed buttresses made of lung stone as well as a stepped one in the middle on the south side and a lower one in the west of the south tower wall. A small sacristy is built on the north side , the eastern door of which dates from the 17th century. The interior has had a paneled wooden ceiling since 1930. To the west is a quarry stone transept with a hipped roof . It receives light at the bottom through two rectangular windows and at the top through two square windows with lattice structure. Today the annex serves as a staircase to the tower and a place where grave slabs and tombstones were found during the renovation in 1830.

Furnishing

Interior to the west
pulpit

The interior of the nave is vaulted by a 17th century wooden barrel with red painted, profiled wooden ribs. Three tie rods reinforce the roof trusses. The ribs from an earlier brick vault are recognizable. The three-sided gallery from the 17th century in blue frame is supported by round wooden columns. The fillings of the gallery parapets are marbled and structured by pilasters .

The polygonal, wooden pulpit with a simple sound cover dates from the middle of the 17th century. It rests on a stone foot. The pulpit fields have T-shaped and square, marbled panels between three-quarter pillars. The block altar is closed by a plate and has a wooden crucifix of the three-nail type , which was donated in 1860, as an altar cross . A Romanesque bronze crucifix, created around 1180, has been in the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Braunschweig since 1997 .

In the north wall of the choir there is a small sacrament niche with a wrought iron door and an eyelash made of red sandstone (around 1300), the sloping gable with floral ornaments and the gable field with a five-petalled flower. A piscina with garments made of red sandstone and the same flower is located under the east window, a simple niche for the aquamanile with a wooden door further to the right.

organ

Rococo organ

The community purchased an organ in 1775 . Today's late Rococo organ was acquired by Geinsheim am Rhein in 1886 when a new church was being built there. Franz Xaver Ripple created the work in 1809. Johann Georg Förster set up the side organ on a new location in the gallery parapet and renewed the Salicional 8 ′ register and the bellows. In 1968 Werner Bosch put the instrument back on the gallery and built a new work behind the historical prospectus , which was probably made by Johann Jakob Dahm . The prospectus is almost identical to the Rückpositiv from Dahm in the Weilburg castle church . Bosch kept some old pipes . Other old registers of unknown origin were used for other registers .

The front work has mechanical sliders and nine registers , which are distributed on a manual and pedal. The white version of the prospectus is divided into seven axes by posts decorated with gilded garlands and ending in volutes at the top and bottom . The elevated, polygonal central tower is flanked by two low, slightly convex pipe fields that lead to two round towers. On the outside there are two harp fields, which are crowned by vases and whose openwork side wings are gilded. All pipe fields close at the top with a gilded veil. The case has a richly profiled cornice at the top, while the lower, continuous cornice has an architrave , frieze and crown molding. The disposition is as follows:

I Manual C – f 3
Dumped 8th'
Salicional 8th'
Principal 4 ′
Dumped 4 ′
octave 2 ′
Sesquialtera II
Mixture IV 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
Pedal C – d 1
Sub-bass 16 ′
Octave bass 8th'

literature

  • Georg Dehio : Handbook of German art monuments , Hessen I: Administrative districts of Giessen and Kassel. Edited by Folkhard Cremer and others. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-422-03092-3 , p. 330.
  • 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, p. 279.
  • 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. 306 f.
  • G. Heinrich Melchior: The church in Gonterskirchen and its structural development. In: Communications of the Upper Hessian History Association. Vol. NF 85, 2000, pp. 225-248.
  • Günter Werk: The Church of Gonterskirchen. In: 750 years of Gonterskirchen. 1239-1989. (= Laubacher booklets 8 ). Local history study group Laubach, Laubach 1989, pp. 49–51.
  • Peter Weyrauch : The churches of the old district of Giessen. Mittelhessische Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Gießen 1979, p. 68 ff.

Web links

Commons : Evangelische Kirche Gonterskirchen  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c State Office for the Preservation of Monuments in Hesse (ed.), Lang (ed.): Cultural monuments in Hesse. District of Giessen I. 2008, p. 307.
  2. ↑ a b c d Dehio: Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler, Hessen I. 2008, p. 330.
  3. ↑ a b Weyrauch: The churches of the old district of Gießen. 1979, p. 68.
  4. ^ 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. 57.
  5. ↑ Gonterskirchen. Historical local dictionary for Hessen. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on October 5, 2014 .
  6. ^ Melchior: The church in Gonterskirchen. 2000, p. 229.
  7. ^ Melchior: The church in Gonterskirchen. 2000, p. 236.
  8. ^ Work: The Church of Gonterskirchen. 1989, p. 50.
  9. ^ Diehl: Construction book for the Protestant parishes. 1935, p. 279.
  10. ^ Melchior: The church in Gonterskirchen. 2000, p. 230.
  11. ^ State Office for the Preservation of Monuments in Hesse (ed.), Lang (ed.): Cultural monuments in Hesse. District of Giessen I. 2008, p. 306.
  12. ^ Weyrauch: The churches of the old district Gießen. 1979, p. 69.
  13. ^ Melchior: The church in Gonterskirchen. 2000, p. 242.
  14. ^ Melchior: The church in Gonterskirchen. 2000, p. 234.
  15. ^ Festschrift Orgel Ober-Saulheim , pp. 15, 17; accessed on February 16, 2020 (PDF).
  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. 396 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 31 '2.6 "  N , 9 ° 1' 21.7"  E