Evangelical Church (Ober-Widdersheim)

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Church from the northwest
Church from the south

The oldest parts of the Evangelical Church in Ober-Widdersheim , a district of Nidda in the Wetteraukreis ( Hessen ), go back to the 13th century. The tower was renewed at the beginning of the 14th century and the sacristy in 1928. Its function as a fortified church is still clearly recognizable. The church is characteristic of the town and is a Hessian cultural monument .

history

The church, built in the 13th century, was St. Maria consecrated. A heavily weathered Gothic statue of the Virgin Mary above the west portal indicates this patronage . The church tower was added at the beginning of the 14th century. In 1316 Ober-Widdersheim was raised to an independent parish. Branches were Borsdorf , Unter-Widdersheim and Häuserhof .

From an ecclesiastical perspective, the parish church belonged to the Archdeaconate of St. Maria ad Gradus in the Archdiocese of Mainz in the late Middle Ages . Ober-Widdersheim formed the sending district in the Friedberg deanery.

The chancel was redesigned in the 15th century by adding a vault in the Gothic style and breaking in large windows.

With the introduction of the Reformation in 1528, Ober-Widdersheim switched to the Protestant creed. The first Protestant pastor was Pankratius Chelius, who worked here from 1528 to 1561. His son Johannes was pastor in Ober-Widdersheim until 1591, the grandson of the same name until 1633.

French troops passing through looted the place in 1796 and destroyed the organ. Since an extension of the old cemetery did not meet the legal requirements, a new cemetery was laid out in the open in 1907/8. In 1914 and 1927/28 extensive interior renovations took place, during which the stucco ceiling was renewed and the choir paintings were exposed. The earlier conversion of choir windows into doors has been reversed. A tower wall was removed and the organ relocated to the tower room. The sacristy was rebuilt on the medieval foundations. A community hall was built in the 1960s.

architecture

Gothic statue of Mary above the west portal
Vaulted chancel

The east-facing, rectangular, defensive hall building can be seen from a long distance on a hill and is surrounded by a fortified cemetery whose old defensive wall has been preserved. The white plastered building has corner blocks made of red sandstone, which is also used for the walls of all windows and doors. The church is accessed through a west portal, which was roofed over in the second half of the 20th century, and a late Gothic south portal to the choir, which originally served as the priest's entrance. The old south portal to the ship is now walled up inside. On the north side, an external staircase gives access to another roofed round arched portal and the north gallery. The nave is lit through two large rectangular windows on the south side. From the Romanesque period, a small Romanesque round arched window in medium height has been preserved in the middle of the south wall, in the far west a small, narrow, high-seated pointed arched window, including an oval window. Except for the old window, the others were renewed in the 18th century and around 1900. A small round window is attached over the west portal. In the course of the vaulting of the chancel in the 15th century, ogival, two-part tracery windows in the Gothic style were let into three sides of the choir .

The vaulted chancel on a square base connects to the nave in the same width. Its gable roof does not quite reach the height of the gable roof of the nave.

On the north side the defense tower from the 14th century is built in the middle . It is divided by cornices into three floors of different heights, which rise above a base. On the north side, a small rectangular window is let in above the base, as well as a small slit window on each floor. The east and west sides also have several slotted windows. On the top floor there are two-part ogival tracery windows on all four sides. The tracery has only broken out on the west side. The bell cage on the upper floor houses a four-person bell. The medieval bell is dedicated to the evangelists . The three Rincker bells, which were cast in 1950 as a replacement for the bells melted down in World War II, bear the inscription of the Bible verse from Lk 2.14  LUT in three parts. The pyramidal tent roof is crowned by a tower knob with a wrought-iron cross and a gold-plated weathercock. In the north-east corner between the choir and the tower there is a low sacristy, which is accessible through a rectangular door on the east side. A narrow, ogival door connects the choir and sacristy.

The ground plan of the church corresponds to that of the church in Gonterskirchen . The tower stands there above the choir, in Ober-Widdersheim it was added to the north side of the church.

Furnishing

View to the east
pulpit

The nave is completed by a stuccoed flat ceiling from the 17th century with geometric figures and supported by a girder . The baroque north and west gallery with coffered parapets rests on square wooden supports that are painted in marbled style. The wooden church stalls leave a central aisle free.

The wooden polygonal pulpit from the Baroque period rests on a winding column, the twelve-sided wooden baptismal font on a hexagonal column with a hexagonal base.

A large round arched choir arch connects the nave with the chancel. It has cantilever plates and painted tendrils.

The ribbed vault of the choir is painted with frescoes from the end of the 15th century. They represent the symbols of the evangelists , which are surrounded by delicate tendrils. The bead ribs rest on small consoles. The keystone is covered with a rose. Several consecration crosses are painted on the walls . The three choir windows have modern stained glass in the lower third. Instead of the apse, the east wall of the altar has a large niche painted with tendrils. To the right of this are two small niches - the right one served as a piscina - and to the left a late Gothic sacrament niche, which is closed with a wooden door. The block altar has ashlar painting. On the altar there is a wooden crucifix of the three-nail type .

organ

Organ brochure from 1832

One organ is attested to from the 1660s. In 1681 a new instrument with six registers was purchased from an organ builder from Griedel, where Konrad and Gottfried Grieb were working at the time. Siegfried von Staden added another register in 1687. A repair carried out by Conrad Wagner from Allendorf (Lumda) in 1724. In 1796 the organ suffered war damage. By 1829 at the latest it had grown to ten registers. In 1832 a new building was carried out by H. Krämer from Leusel. Johann Georg Förster repaired the organ in 1842, 1891 and 1892. In 1928 the Förster & Nicolaus company created a new work with nine stops, a pneumatic action and a free-standing console on the north gallery. In 1952, the same company made an expansion. The prospectus from 1832 is in five parts: The elevated central round tower is flanked by two corner towers, which are connected by two low flat fields. The disposition is as follows:

I Manual C-g 3
Quintad 8th'
Dumped 4 ′
Principal 2 ′
Fifth 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
II Manual C-g 3
Reed flute 8th'
Principal 4 ′
Sharp III – IV
Pedal C – f 1
Sub-bass 16 ′
flute 4 ′
  • Pairing :
    • Normal coupling: II / I, I / P, II / P
    • Sub-octave coupling: II / I 16 ′
  • Playing aids : Tutti step

literature

  • Franz Bösken , Hermann Fischer : Sources and research on the organ history of the Middle Rhine (=  contributions to the Middle Rhine music history . Volume 29.2 ). tape 3 : Former province of Upper Hesse. Part 2: M-Z . Schott, Mainz 1988, ISBN 3-7957-1331-5 , p. 743-746 .
  • Wilhelm Diehl : Construction book for the Protestant parishes of the Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt. (Hassia sacra; 5). Self-published, Darmstadt 1931, pp. 335–337.
  • Georg Dehio , Folkhard Cremer a. a .: Handbook of German Art Monuments. Hesse II. Darmstadt administrative district. 2nd Edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-422-03117-3 , p. 645.
  • 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 ). Elwert, Marburg 1937, reprint 1984, p. 31.
  • State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.); Siegfried RCT Enders, Christoph Mohr (arrangement): Architectural monuments in Hessen. Wetteraukreis I (= monument topography Federal Republic of Germany ). Vieweg, Braunschweig / Wiesbaden 1982, ISBN 3-528-06231-2 , p. 322.
  • 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. 483 f.
  • Heinrich Wagner: Ober-Widdersheim . In: Art monuments in the Grand Duchy of Hesse. Province of Upper Hesse. Büdingen district. Arnold Bergstraesser, Darmstadt 1890, pp. 228-231.

Web links

Commons : Evangelical Church Ober-Widdersheim  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.): Architectural monuments in Hesse. 1982, p. 322.
  2. ^ History and dates of Ober-Widdersheim, chronicle on the occasion of a club anniversary 2010 , p. 1 (PDF file; 328 kB), accessed on March 26, 2018.
  3. ^ Kleinfeldt, Weirich: The medieval church organization. 1937, p. 31.
  4. ↑ a b Ober-Widdersheim. Historical local dictionary for Hessen. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on March 27, 2014 .
  5. ↑ a b Homepage of the parish: The church of Ober-Widdersheim , accessed on March 27, 2014.
  6. ↑ History and dates of Ober-Widdersheim, chronicle on the occasion of an association anniversary 2010 , p. 3 (PDF file; 328 kB), accessed on March 26, 2018.
  7. ↑ Grand Ducal Ministry of the Interior (ed.): Annual report of the preservation of monuments in the Grand Duchy of Hesse 1908–1911. Vol. 2. Staatsverlag, Darmstadt 1912, p. 149.
  8. ↑ a b Diehl: Construction book for the Protestant parishes. 1931, p. 150.
  9. ↑ Schütte (Ed.): Churches and synagogues in the villages of the Wetterau. 2004, p. 484.
  10. ↑ a b c d Handbook of German Art Monuments. 2008, p. 645.
  11. ^ Heinrich Walbe : Report on the architectural monuments in the province of Upper Hesse. In: Annual Report of the Preservation of Monuments in the People's State of Hesse 1913–1928. Vol. 4a. Staatsverlag, Darmstadt 1930, p. 209.
  12. ^ Bösken, Fischer: Sources and research on the organ history of the Middle Rhine . 1988, pp. 743-746.

Coordinates: 50 ° 25 ′ 40 ″  N , 8 ° 56 ′ 20 ″  E