Evangelical Church Baldenheim
The Evangelical Church in Baldenheim is a church building of the Evangelical Lutheran Protestant Church of the Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine . It is under monument protection as a monument historique .
history
At the end of the 11th / beginning of the 12th century, the first church in the Romanesque style with a simple rectangular hall and retracted rectangular choir was built in Baldenheim on an old cemetery . In the 14th and 15th centuries, the choir and nave were lengthened and raised. A bell tower was built on the south side. After the Lords of Rathsamhausen converted to the Protestant faith in 1576, the Reformation also prevailed in Baldenheim and the parish followed. A decree of King Louis XIV allowed Catholics to use the church choir in places with more than seven Catholic families, including in Baldenheim. At first the Protestants tried to torpedo the decree, but in 1749 the Catholics captured the choir "gun in hand" and locked it with a gate to deny access to the Protestant residents. Until the new construction of the Catholic Church in 1938, the church was used simultaneously.
In 1576 the nave was given an L-shaped gallery on the west and north sides, which was entered via an external staircase.
The church was damaged during the French Revolution . The grave monuments were destroyed and burials prohibited. In 1800 the roof structure in the bell tower burned out. The gable roof was replaced by a pyramid roof. At first it was covered with tiles. In 1859 these were replaced by slates.
In 1939 the church was extensively restored. Work began on extending the nave to the south, but this work had to be interrupted after the start of the Second World War. Cossacks in the service of the Wehrmacht used the church as a horse stable in 1944. It was not until 1946 that the church was finished and put into service. In 1963 the church received a new gallery and a new organ. Slug panes were used and new tiles were laid in the church and sacristy. In 1992/92 the church was restored again, and wall paintings were also exposed and preserved. The gallery was shortened in order to be able to show visitors the full extent of the frescoes.
architecture
The hall church is closed to the east by a retracted Gothic choir with ⅝-closure. To the south of the choir rises a three-storey tower with a slate pyramid helmet over a square floor plan. The dimensions of the nave are 13.5 m × 6.5 m. The flat wooden ceiling was used after the Second World War. A five-sided apse with buttresses was added to the originally rectangular choir. In each wall there is a Gothic window, which is crowned by a quatrefoil in the back wall . The lower part of the nave is illuminated by several irregular round windows, above which there are high ogival windows.
From the choir you get to the sacristy on the ground floor of the tower. This is vaulted in the Renaissance style with cross ribs. The private chapel of the von Rathsamhausen family is located above the sacristy. This can be reached from the outside via a wooden staircase. From the chapel you can also get to the upper floors of the tower.
Furnishing
14th and 15th century frescoes
The church has been richly painted over the centuries. In the 14th century the rear nave was painted, the choir in the 15th century. With the Reformation, however, the pictures were painted over with white lime paint. They were not rediscovered until 1904, but restoration was rejected. When the nave was expanded, the paintings were exposed and copied on paper. But in 1946 they were repainted with lime paint. It was not until 1992/93 that the paintings were exposed again and properly restored.
The suffering of Christ is depicted on the south and west wall of the nave under the organ gallery, above the organ gallery scenes from the life of Mary are immortalized on the south and west wall, on the west and north walls male and female saints, who have not yet been seen are fully identified. On the north wall are St. Margaretha and St. Nicholas painted, also a crucifixion of Christ.
The choir was painted in the 15th century. The triumphal arch shows a representation of the Last Judgment on the side of the nave. The side facing the choir shows the Dormition of Mary. The niche in the back left of the choir is flanked by two angels and probably served as a tabernacle. The niche in the back wall to the choir shows a crucifixion of Christ. On the middle level the crowd of the apostles is represented, who surround Christ. In the upper area the Annunciation of the Lord and the birth of Christ are shown.
In the apse five people from the Old Covenant are depicted: Moses, King David, Elias, Noah and Abraham. Above it are five angels making music and finally God the Father who carries the globe in his hands. The symbols of the four evangelists have been painted in the ceiling between the cross ribs: the bull for St. Luke, the eagle for St. John, the lion for Mark and the man for Matthew.
organ
The church got an organ very late. In 1813 Joseph Bergäntzel installed his first instrument on the gallery in the nave. In 1925 Geoges Schwenkedel built a new organ. When the nave was to be expanded in 1939, the gallery and organ were dismantled and stored. After the war, however, large parts of the instrument disappeared. In 1964 the Mühleisen organ workshop built a third organ with mechanical action, two manuals and 14 stops.
Bells
The date on which the church's first bell was made is unknown. The second bell was cast by the Edel bell foundry in Strasbourg in 1728. In 1789 the first bell broke and Edel repaired it. But during the French Revolution the bell was taken down and melted down. The second bell broke in 1869 and also had to be removed. In the same year the church received two new bells, which hung in the bell room until 1917 and were then melted down. It was not until the fourth Advent in 1925 that the church received a new bell, which still hangs in the church tower today and was manufactured by the Caumard bell foundry in Colmar . It bears the names of the mayor at the time, the alderman, the two pastors and the bell founder. It also bears the inscription: "Peace be their bells".
Funerary monuments
In the church there are graves in the apse as well as in the sacristy, which were originally in the cemetery and came into the interior of the church through the construction of the apse and tower. Several Gothic and Renaissance tombs have been preserved on the north side of the choir, in which members of the Rathsamhausen family are probably buried. Tombs can also be seen in the nave. Several graves of children and adults from the 16th and 17th centuries have been preserved directly on the triumphal arch. Members of the noble families von Rathsamhausen zum Stein and Waldner von Freudenstein or relatives also lie here. To the west, several adult grave vaults have been preserved in the nave. The tombstones are now partially embedded in the walls of the church, including an epitaph of Franziska Bengina von Sandersleben-Coligny and Franz Ludwig and Wilhelmina Augusta Eleonora Sophia Waldner von Freundstein.
literature
- Walter Hotz: Handbook of the art monuments in Alsace and Lorraine. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1976, p. 14
- Dominique Toursel-Harster, Jean-Pierre Beck, Guy Bronner: Dictionnaire des Monuments historiques d'Alsace . La Nuée Bleue, Strasbourg 1995, p. 39f
- Evangelical Church Baldenheim . (= Art Guide No. 2175), Schnell and Steiner, Regensburg 1997
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Entry no. PA00084595 in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
Coordinates: 48 ° 14 '15 " N , 7 ° 32' 14.3" E