Historic church Altenvers

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Historic Altenvers church from the south
Church around 1890 from the north

The historic church ( Hufeisenkirche ) is a listed church building in Altenvers , a district of Lohra in the Marburg-Biedenkopf district ( Hesse ). A special feature of the essentially Romanesque church, which has been rebuilt several times, is the horseshoe-shaped floor plan of the apse , which is unique in Germany.

history

The Romanesque church was probably built in the 11th-13th centuries. Century built. An establishment in the 8th / 9th The century is not certain, but it cannot be ruled out either. Then the church might have been built in Carolingian times. In the late Middle Ages, the church in the sending district of Lohra was assigned to the Archdeaconate of St. Stephan in the Archdiocese of Mainz .

In 1456/1457 a wooden structure was installed. With the introduction of the Reformation in 1526, the parish changed to the Protestant confession. The beams on the inner walls, dated to 1529, indicate a renovation or renewal of the wooden installation shortly after the Reformation.

Altenvers was parish in 1577 and later to Lohra and after 1630 together with Rollshausen and Seelbach a branch church of Lohra.

In the course of a comprehensive renovation in the years 1654–1657, a window was broken into. A new pulpit was purchased in 1664 and an organ in 1675, expanded in 1692, the pulpit and galleries were renewed in 1729, new pews for the women and a parsonage were acquired in 1773–1778 as part of an exterior and interior renovation, and in 1784 four windows were enlarged and damaged masonry repaired . In 1906 most of the windows and the door were replaced.

In the second half of the 20th century, the church fell into increasingly decay. After the roof over the apse collapsed, demolition was approved in 1968. A “Marburg Cityscape Initiative Group” acquired the building with the aim of carrying out an emergency backup and transferring it to the Lohra municipality in the medium term. In 1978 the "Association for History and Folklore Lohra" was founded, which took over the church on August 30, 1979 for a fee of 3000 DM. The damage to the roof turret, the roof of the apse, the north side of the roof and the external plaster were repaired in 1979 and the damaged windows were re-glazed and the edging was painted in English-red. In 1980 the damaged churchyard wall was renovated and in 1981 the interior renovation including repairing the plaster, renovating the benches and renewing the paint, electrical installation and flooring. Finally, the association acquired a new bell and a positive organ from Hofbauer. The commitment of the "Association for History and Folklore Lohra" raised 92,000 DM, which was supplemented by 70,000 DM from funds from the community, the district, the preservation of monuments, the Marburg history association and the "Funding Association for Old Churches". For its commitment and the successful renovation, the association received the Hessian Monument Protection Prize on August 31, 1995 .

After a new Protestant church was built in the village in 1982, the church was de- dedicated .

Building description

Horseshoe-shaped apse
Church from the west

The small, geostete hall building has been erected in a prominent location in the south of the town center. The church is covered by a saddle roof, on which a small roof turret is placed in the east . The brickwork is plastered white on the outside and inside, with corner blocks and window frames left out.

The long house on a rectangular floor plan is about 9.70 meters long and 7.80 meters wide. The south wall is 0.95 meters thick and consists mainly of slab layers. The church is illuminated on the long sides through two large, high-seated arched windows that were renewed in 1906. Only one arched window on the south side is older, but also modern. The corner blocks and the window frames probably go back to the 18th century. The church is accessed through a round arched south portal in a wooden, rectangular frame . On the west wall, an early modern slit about 0.20 meters wide and 0.90 meters at a height of about 3.30 meters indicates the originally defensive character of the church. The unusual Gothic half-timbered roof construction with the roof turret was dendrochronologically dated to 1456/1457. The beams on the inner walls of the church date from 1529. The four-sided roof turret with pyramid helmet is completely slated and is crowned by a gold-plated weathercock over an arrow and a cross.

The recessed and low choir on a horseshoe-shaped floor plan is 3.60 meters long. The shape of the apse is unique in its kind. The closest architectural parallel can be found in the desert of Udenhausen , where only the remains of the foundations of a square hall church with a horseshoe-shaped east apse (6 meters wide and 5 meters deep) have been preserved. The shards of a spherical pot wall discovered in 1981 on the northern choir arch were used in the 11th – 13th centuries. Dated century. A round arched triumphal arch opens the choir to the nave. The shape of the arched opening is just like the apse plan in the region without parallel and a Carolingian period of origin in the 8th to 11th centuries cannot be ruled out.

View through the choir arch to the west
View from the rear gallery of the altar in the horseshoe-shaped apse

Furnishing

The low flat ceiling of the interior is supported by a girder , which is supported by a lower octagonal center post with two head straps . A three-sided, circumferential, wooden gallery is built into the community hall, which rests on eight-sided wooden beams with small curved arches . The gallery ends on the south wall at the parish chair , in the north it runs through to the choir arch. A staircase in the west allows access to the gallery. The floor of the choir and nave is covered with red sandstone slabs. Paintings from the 13th and 17th / 18th centuries were painted on the walls during an interior renovation. Uncovered in small parts in the 19th century. The turquoise version of the wooden inventory pieces corresponds to the condition in the last quarter of the 18th century.

The pulpit is no longer there, only the flat, polygonal sound cover of the pulpit on the southern supporting masonry of the choir arch is still preserved. To the left and right of the choir arch, wooden parsonage chairs are built in, with coffered panels at the bottom and openwork diamondwork at the top. The little organ is in one of these parish chairs. The wooden church stalls from the 18th century consist of nine benches and leave the space under the galleries free for access. The curved cheeks show painted floral motifs that were uncovered in 1981. The block altar in the choir is covered by a red sandstone cafeteria slab.

Saint Elizabeth and the Elizabeth path

According to source reports, Elisabeth von Thuringia visited the Hufeisenkirche several times at the end of the 1220s when she was on the way to Altenberg Monastery near Wetzlar , to which she had entrusted her youngest daughter Gertrud . Today the church building is the starting point of the pilgrimage route known as the Elisabethpfad, which traces the route traveled by St. Elisabeth to Altenberg and passes Altenvers.

literature

  • Günter E. Th. Bezzenberger: Worth seeing churches in the church areas of Hesse and Nassau and Kurhessen-Waldeck, including the Rhine-Hessian church districts of Wetzlar and Braunfels. Evangelical Press Association, Kassel 1987, p. 81.
  • Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments. Hessen . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1966, p. 15.
  • State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.); Helmuth K. Stoffers (Red.): District of Marburg-Biedenkopf II (communities Ebsdorfergrund, Fronhausen, Lohra and Weimar) (= monument topography Federal Republic of Germany. Cultural monuments in Hesse ). Theiss, Darmstadt 2017, ISBN 978-3-8062-3550-0 , pp. 446-447.
  • Katharina Thiersch: Materials on the history of the old Lohre-Altenvers church and its preservation. In: State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.): Preservation of monuments & cultural history. No. 2, 2007, pp. 16-24.
  • Jakob Wagner, Heinrich Justus Wagner: Saint Elisabeth and the Elisabeth path . 2nd Edition. Association for History and Folklore V., Lohra-Rollshausen 2007.

Web links

Commons : Historische Kirche Altenvers  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse : District Marburg-Biedenkopf II. 2017, p. 446.
  2. ↑ a b c Bezzenberger: Churches worth seeing in the church areas of Hesse and Nassau and Kurhessen-Waldeck 1987, p. 81.
  3. ↑ Altenvers. Historical local dictionary for Hessen. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on November 12, 2015 .
  4. ↑ Georg Dehio ; Magnus Backes (edit.): Handbook of German Art Monuments. Hessen . tape 1 .. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich, Berlin 1966, p. 15 .
  5. ↑ Thiersch: Materials on the history of the old Lohre-Altenvers church and its preservation. 2007, p. 16.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f http://www.lohra-wiki.de:/ Hufeisenkirche Altenvers , accessed on November 12, 2015.
  7. ↑ Thiersch: Materials on the history of the old Lohre-Altenvers church and its preservation. 2007, p. 17.
  8. ↑ Certificate of the Hessian Monument Preservation Prize .
  9. ↑ http://www.op-marburg.de:/ Monument conservationists visit Altenverser Hufeisenkirche , accessed on November 12, 2015.
  10. ↑ Christa Meiborg: The church stump of Udenhausen. A deserted village near Ebsdorfergrund-Roßberg, Marburg-Biedenkopf district (= Archaeological Monuments in Hesse. Issue 123, ISSN  0936-1693 ). Department of Archaeological and Paleontological Monument Preservation in the State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse and others, Wiesbaden, 1995
  11. ^ Heinz P. Probst: Early village churches in Hessen. A contribution to the formation and archeology of medieval small churches. In: Communications of the Upper Hessian History Association. NF Volume 89, 2004, pp. 213-260, here: pp. 254, 256.
  12. ↑ Thiersch: Materials on the history of the old Lohre-Altenvers church and its preservation. 2007, pp. 22-23.
  13. ↑ Wagner: Saint Elisabeth and the Elisabeth path . 2007, pp. 12-16.

Coordinates: 50 ° 42 '33.08 "  N , 8 ° 37' 1.38"  O