Evangelical Church Eichen (Nidderau)

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Church in oak from the southwest

The Evangelical Church in Eichen in the municipality of Nidderau in the Main-Kinzig district ( Hesse ) is a baroque hall church that was built in 1695 and 1712 instead of a previous medieval building. The listed church with a crooked roof has a three-eighth closure in the east and is dominated by a three-storey dome roof turret from 1742 in the west.

history

2005 excavated annex on the south wall
Bones of a 10 year old child found in the northern burial place

Pre-Reformation period

In 1380 a cappellin czu Eychin is mentioned, which was a branch of Heldenbergen and was dedicated to Lucia of Syracuse . This predecessor of today's church may have been made of wood. Eichen was located in the district of the Roßdorf deanery in the archdeaconate of St. Maria ad Gradus in Mainz , but as a branch church of Heldenbergen it was subordinate to the Mainz cathedral chapter . From 1540 to 1551 Eichen von Bleichenbach was supplied by the parish and was still a Roman Catholic in 1548 .

Excavations have proven a hall church with a straight east end. As is customary with chapels of saints at that time, it had an outside altar in the east. Presumably in the 15th century the east wall was laid down and the church expanded.

After the Reformation

With the introduction of the Reformation , the place changed to the evangelical confession in 1551 under pastor Adam Ludwig, who worked in Eichen until 1562 . Erbstadt was now parish after oak. Ludwig's successor Leonhard Roth had studied in Wittenberg and received a diploma signed by Philipp Melanchthon . Roth was pastor in Eichen from 1563 to 1596 when the parish under Count Philipp Ludwig II switched to the Reformed Confession .

The village and the meanwhile rebuilt and expanded church were almost completely destroyed in the Thirty Years' War on May 15, 1635 in the early morning within an hour by Croatians who fought on the side of the imperial troops, so that “oaks with the church turned into a desert and heaps of stones become ". The pastor was murdered. In the years 1636, 1637, 1639 and 1640 there was only one baptism. Due to the depopulation, the pastor in Ostheim supplied the parish oak in the years 1632–1656.

After Count Friedrich Casimir von Hanau-Lichtenberg from the Lutheran branch of the ruling family came to power in 1642, there were increasing numbers of Lutherans in the County of Hanau-Münzenberg . The Lutherans from oaks were parish in Windecken, but gathered in a separate building in oaks. Since 1674, a representative residential building served the Lutherans as their own church.

To rebuild the destroyed Reformed Church, donations were collected in 1693, 1695 and 1704/1704, first in the area, then through large parts of Hesse and finally even into what is now Lower Saxony and Nijmegen in the Netherlands. The first collection yielded around 54 guilders over a distance of around 295 km in two and a half months. In 1695, around 97 guilders were received when several collectors covered at least 1085 km in different stages. The collections of 1704/1705 were mainly carried out by a "Meister Heyl" who covered 2,300 km on foot in nine months. After deducting the agreed wages, his travels yielded 70 to 80 guilders for building the church. In 1695 the tower and church were probably "rebuilt and put in good condition". The choir was rebuilt in 1703 and a stone wall enclosure in 1716. The apparently preserved Gothic door arch of the St. Lucia Chapel was included. In 1742 today's roof turret was put on.

Modern times

In 1821 a uniate parish was formed in the wake of the Hanau Union . Due to the merger of the two Protestant communities, the Lutheran church was sold to the political community in 1837 and subsequently served as the town hall.

After changes to the interior of the church in 1895 and 1901, the interior renovation in 1969 led to a redesign of the interior. The congregation bought a new altar and a baptismal font made of red sandstone. The altar area was covered with sandstone slabs and the church stalls were replaced. During an interior renovation between 2001 and 2005, the altar area was redesigned. The raised gallery was shortened, so that since then the organ ends as a parapet organ with the gallery and the altar area has been enlarged. In addition, a new gallery was created in the north-east corner of the church. Remnants of baroque painting with the Beatitudes were discovered on the panels, but not exposed for reasons of cost. Instead, the Beatitudes were redistributed in the interior. The lighting was renewed.

Archaeological investigation

Representation of the excavations in a showcase

As part of the renovation of the altar, Heike Lasch carried out an excavation in the altar area in 2003 on an area of ​​8 m² and came across different stone settings. The two-phase stone setting in the southeast is 1.10 m high and forms a kind of shell masonry in the lower area, possibly the boundary wall of the first stone church and the foundations of an outer altar. The two-layer stone setting in the west shows signs of fire and was probably part of the floor of the previous church. An old sandstone slab, which is now embedded under the altar, presumably formed the threshold to the apse . The shape of the apse could not be proven during this limited excavation. Furthermore, the burial of Cornelia von Eßen, who died on September 2, 1665 in Hanau and was buried in Eichen on September 5, was uncovered. The nails of the wooden coffin were preserved.

Excavations in the outdoor area followed in 2005 when drainage trenches were created. An exposed 5 m long wall up to one meter wide made of mortared quarry stone masonry runs parallel to the south wall at a distance of 2.5 m and then joins it at both ends at right angles. The foundations of the eastern part of the church are on top of or built around the older foundations. In two small niches in the masonry, human bones were found, which presumably came from an ossuary . The differently manufactured foundation walls from two phases and the construction seam between the two parts of the church confirm that the church was rebuilt in two construction phases.

The connection between oaks and hereditary town, which has existed since the Reformation, is still in place today. The parish Eichen-Erbstadt belongs to the Hanau district in the Evangelical Church of Kurhessen-Waldeck .

architecture

Pointed arch portal on the north side
View from the northeast

The church , which is not exactly easted , but slightly east-northeast oriented, is built on the eastern edge of the village. It is plastered white. The plinth area, the corner blocks and the walls of the portals and windows made of red sandstone are left out of the plaster. The hall building has a three-sided east end and is covered by a crooked roof with red tiles, on which an eight-sided, gray slated roof turret is placed in the west . The three floors, which taper towards the top, have curved hoods. On the first floor there are seven arched sound openings for the bells ; to the northwest is the clock face of the tower clock. The two upper floors each have four rectangular openings. The roof turret is crowned by a tower knob , a richly decorated wrought-iron compass rose and a weathercock.

The church is accessed through a rectangular west portal under a tiled canopy. The pointed arched north portal probably dates back to the 15th century from the previous Gothic building. The stepped pointed arch merges into a hollow below the warriors . Large baroque arched windows illuminate the interior, four on the southern long side and three on the northern long side. There are three oval windows in the choir and a small round window above the west portal.

Furnishing

inner space

Pulpit with expressionist paintings
Altar area and organ gallery
Looking west into the nave

The interior is simply designed in accordance with Reformed tradition. The flat ceiling has rectangular fields and is supported by two longitudinal beams, which are supported in the west by two square wooden posts. The three-sided gallery from 1742 leaves the south side with the pulpit free. The parapet has coffered panels and rests on upwardly tapering posts with arches . The octagonal support below the east gallery, which serves as the installation site for the organ, is decorated in the head piece by a sun wheel. The floor is covered with red sandstone slabs.

The polygonal wooden pulpit corresponds to a flat hexagonal sound cover. The panels of the three pulpit panels contain Expressionist paintings by the evangelists from the 1920s, Matthew with Mark on the left, Luke with John on the right and Christ in the middle. The modernly designed, black, wooden block altar from 2005 is covered by a thin plate and surrounded at the bottom by a gold-colored square metal mesh made of rods and discs, symbolizing a bale of straw. The cup-shaped baptismal font made of red sandstone dates from 1969 and is movable on rollers. The sandstone altar from the same year is now placed in front of the church.

In the nave , the simple wooden church stalls with curved cheeks leave a central aisle free. Eleven hanging lamps with glass cylinders have been illuminating the interior since 1983. A retracted glass wall created an anteroom below the west gallery.

The artist Sigrid screw designed the Beatitudes in Greek letters , distributed in different places in the church, on the glass doors under the west gallery, on the staircase, on the parapet panels in the chancel, above the first gallery beam and on large white fabric flags in front of the south windows, but also on the attic. The dove, which is hung over the baptismal font, as a symbol of the Holy Spirit , also comes from screw .

organ

Ratzmann organ from 1847

The church records first mention an organ in 1733 that needed repair. The work of an unknown organ builder is given in the 1770s with eight registers . The organ builder Johann Friedrich Syer submitted an offer for a new building with ten registers in 1760, but this was not carried out. Instead, Johann Georg Zinck repaired the instrument in the same year. Another repair was carried out by Zinck in 1778/1779, after the community had also contacted organ builder Dreuth , and in 1790 it was repaired. Since there was no money for a new building, repairs were carried out in 1803, 1817, 1822, 1837 and 1842.

Wilhelm August Ratzmann built today's organ with 19 registers in 1847. The three-axis prospectus is designed in the classicism style. It has three rectangular pipe flat fields, which are structured by pilasters and closed at the top with openwork, gilded veil boards. Above the middle field, a top with two pilasters, flanked by two volutes , extends to the church ceiling. A lyre is depicted under a round arch field. Crowning vases stand on the corners of the side panels.

As part of a renovation in 1878, Johann Georg Förster replaced some registers and the bellows. Wilhelm Ratzmann repaired the organ in 1888. In 1917 the pewter prospect pipes were delivered for armaments purposes and replaced by inferior zinc pipes in the post-war years. Walcker & Cie carried out renovations and repairs in 1952/1953, Bernhard Schmidt carried out minor work in 1955 and Förster & Nicolaus Orgelbau 1978 and 1982 carried out modifications and repairs. In 2005, Orgelbau Hoffmann from Ostheim vor der Rhön restored the instrument and reconstructed the lost prospect pipes and the bellows. Some registers from Ratzmann have been preserved. Some loops are still vacant. Today the organ has 16 registers, which are distributed over two manuals and pedal , and has the following disposition :

I main work C – f 3
Principal 8th'
Bourdun 8th'
Viola di gamba 8th'
Octave 4 ′
Night horn 4 ′
Forest flute 4 ′
Nasat 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Mixture IV 2 ′
II Oberwerk C – f 3
Dumped 8th'
Reed flute 4 ′
Fifth 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
Octave 2 ′
Pedal C – c 1
Sub-bass 16 ′
Octave bass 8th'
Choral bass 4 ′
Bass flute 2 ′

Peal

The roof turret houses a triple bell. Johann Peter Bach cast the middle bell in Windecken in 1752 on the strike note h 1 . It bears the inscription “Glory to God in on high and peace on earth”. Philipp Heinrich Bach poured a big bell in Windecken in 1858, which was delivered and melted down for war purposes in 1917. The Bachert bell foundry provided a replacement in 1962 (on f sharp 1 ). The smallest bell is also the oldest. It was cast by Johannes and Andreas Schneidewind in Frankfurt am Main in 1728. Delivered in 1941, it escaped being melted down and returned to Eichen in 1946/1947. Its strike note on d 2 completes the sixth minor fourth chord.

literature

in alphabetical order by authors / editors

  • Max Aschkewitz: Pastor history of the Hanau district ("Hanauer Union") until 1968. Volume 2 (= publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse. Volume 33). Elwert, Marburg 1984, ISBN 3-7708-0788-X , pp. 173-183.
  • Karl Wilhelm Castendyck; Jürgen Müller (Hrsg.): War history of the Protestant parish Eichen-Erbstadt 1914-1918 (= sources and research on Hessian history. Vol. 176). Self-published by the Historical Commission Darmstadt and the Historical Commission for Hesse, Darmstadt 2017, ISBN 978-3-88443-331-7 .
  • Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments . Hesse II. Darmstadt administrative district. Edited by Folkhard Cremer, Tobias Michael Wolf and others. 3. Edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-422-03117-3 , pp. 202–203.
  • 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. 39.
  • Heike Lasch: The excavations in the Evangelical Church in Nidderau-Eichen. Strange bones and a mysterious stone setting in the Main-Kinzig district. In: Hessen Archeology. Vol. 2003. Theiss, Darmstadt 2004, ISSN  1610-0190 , pp. 154-156.
  • Heike Lasch: News from the Protestant Church in Nidderau-Eichen. More mysterious burials in the Main-Kinzig district. In: Hessen Archeology. Vol. 2005. Theiss, Darmstadt 2006, ISSN  1610-0190 , pp. 123-125.
  • Heike Lasch: What church records tell. Two collection books from the archives of the Evangelical Church Community in Nidderau-Eichen or around 3,700 km of route for reconstruction. In: Center for Regional History (Gelnhausen). Newsletter. Vol. 40, 2015, ISSN  0940-4198 , pp. 36-45.
  • Nikolaus E. Pfarr: The organs of the Evangelical Church in Eichen (= The Ratzmann organ builder family from Ohrdruf / Thür.-Gelnhausen and their work. Volume 7). Parish, Mittelgründau 2005.
  • City of Nidderau (ed.); Festschrift committee 950 years of oaks (ed.): 950 years of oaks (= Nidderauer Hefte. Vol. 2). City of Nidderau, Nidderau-Eichen 1986.

Web links

Commons : Evangelical Church Eichen (Nidderau)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ City of Nidderau (Ed.): 950 years of oaks. 1986, p. 24.
  2. ↑ a b Lasch: News from the Protestant Church in Nidderau-Eichen. 2006, p. 124.
  3. ^ Kleinfeldt, Weirich: The medieval church organization. 1984, p. 39.
  4. ↑ a b c d Aschkewitz: Pastor history of the Hanau district (“Hanauer Union”) until 1968. 1984, p. 173.
  5. ↑ a b Dehio: Handbook of the German Art Monuments. Hessen II. 2008, p. 202.
  6. ^ Lasch: News from the Evangelical Church in Nidderau-Eichen. 2006, p. 125.
  7. ^ City of Nidderau (Ed.): 950 years of oaks. 1986, p. 46.
  8. ↑ Aschkewitz: Pastor history of the Hanau district ("Hanauer Union") until 1968. 1984, p. 293.
  9. ^ Lasch: What church records tell. 2015, p. 36.
  10. ^ Lasch: What church records tell. 2015, p. 37.
  11. ^ Lasch: What church records tell. 2015, pp. 39, 41.
  12. ^ Lasch: What church records tell. 2015, p. 45.
  13. ^ City of Nidderau (Ed.): 950 years of oaks. 1986, pp. 29, 49.
  14. ↑ oaks. Historical local dictionary for Hessen. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on November 14, 2017 .
  15. ^ City of Nidderau (Ed.): 950 years of oaks. 1986, pp. 40, 48.
  16. ↑ a b Dehio: Handbook of the German Art Monuments. Hessen II. 2008, p. 203.
  17. ↑ Lasch: The excavations in the Evangelical Church in Nidderau-Eichen. 2004, p. 154.
  18. ↑ Lasch: The excavations in the Evangelical Church in Nidderau-Eichen. 2004, p. 156.
  19. ^ Lasch: News from the Evangelical Church in Nidderau-Eichen. 2006, p. 123.
  20. ↑ a b c City of Nidderau (Ed.): 950 years of oaks. 1986, p. 49.
  21. ^ City of Nidderau (Ed.): 950 years of oaks. 1986, pp. 49-50.
  22. ↑ Parish: The organs of the Evangelical Church in oaks. 2005, pp. 25-29.
  23. ↑ Parish: The organs of the Evangelical Church in oaks. 2005, pp. 39-42.
  24. ^ Orgelbau Andreas Schmidt , accessed on November 27, 2017.
  25. ↑ Parish: The organs of the Evangelical Church in oaks. 2005, p. 97.
  26. ↑ Parish: The organs of the Evangelical Church in oaks. 2005, p. 147.
  27. ^ City of Nidderau (Ed.): 950 years of oaks. 1986, p. 50.

Coordinates: 50 ° 15 ′ 23.3 "  N , 8 ° 54 ′ 35.9"  E