Evangelical Church Großaltenstädten

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Church with staircase and cenotaph

The Evangelical Church United Altenstädten is one of two parish churches of the Protestant parish Erda large old cities in the municipality Hohenahr in central Hesse Lahn-Dill-Kreis . It belongs to the parish of Lahn and Dill of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland . The church building is a cultural monument for historical, artistic and urban planning reasons.

History of the parish and church

In the Middle Ages, the village of Großaltenstädten belonged to the deanery of Wetzlar and the archdeaconate of St. Lubentius Dietkirchen in the diocese of Trier . Not far from the so-called Rennweg , its location was very favorable in the Middle Ages. The proximity to this old trade route may have been one reason why the place had its own church early on. This is all the more remarkable because the location of the village suggests that it belongs to the church in the neighboring town of Altenkirchen , to which eleven places in the area were parish officially assigned in the Middle Ages and which is still the center of a large parish today.

The first mention of a church in "Aldynstedin" goes back to an entry in the so-called Red Book of the Altenberg Monastery in the Princely Archives in Braunfels from 1310. It was therefore administered by a pleban named Theodoric. A pastor Conradus is then mentioned for the year 1325. Church patronage and tithes were owned by the Lords of Bicken , from whom they were bought in 1294 by the Counts of Solms . The pastor of Großaltenstädten was initially also responsible for Hohensolms , which was newly created from 1350 onwards . When it received its own pastor in 1454, the pastor from Großaltenstadt lost part of his income. With the introduction of the Reformation, the independent pastoral office in Großaltenstädten finally ceased. In 1548 the place was already Evangelical-Lutheran . The area around Hohensolms and Königsberg was jointly owned by the Counts of Solms-Lich and the Landgraves of Hesse . This also included joint supervision of the clergy. Hesse claimed the patronage of large old cities, which meant that the place since 1548 parish officially long time the Hessian later Hesse-Darmstadt city was parish Konigsberg assigned and was supervised by the local priest.

When Hessen-Darmstadt and Solms-Hohensolms divided the country between themselves in 1629, Großaltenstädten became a Solms community, but the supervision of school and church issues remained communal. Under the influence of Hessen-Darmstadt, Großaltenstädten always remained Evangelical-Lutheran, even when the House of Solms-Hohensolms accepted the Evangelical Reformed Confession in 1623 and established a Reformed parish in its Hohensolms residence. Solms-Hohensolms always saw its sovereignty impaired by the influence of Hessen-Darmstadt. Unilateral orders from school or church servants in large cities, either from Hessen-Darmstadt or from Solms-Hohensolms, led to repeated disputes between the two imperial estates until the end of the Holy Roman Empire . With the dissolution of the Principality of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich, Großaltenstädten became Nasssauisch in 1806 and Prussian in 1815 . In 1827 it became a subsidiary of Hohensolms. Despite the fact that both congregations had belonged to the Uniate Church of Prussia since 1817, differences in the ritual of the worship service were still noticeable for a long time. It was still common in the 1960s for the pastor to stand in front of the altar in Großaltenstädten with his Lutheran tradition, but in Hohensolms, which had been reformed for around 200 years, behind the altar. There were also clear differences in the administration of the Lord's Supper. In 1971 the parish office connection with Hohensolms was dissolved. Since then, Großaltenstädten has been supplied from Erda , with whom it now also forms a joint parish. The pastor's seat is in Erda.

architecture

Romanesque church tower

The church is located on a small hill on the outskirts. It survived a major fire in the village on August 23, 1798, which destroyed 12 farms.

The building consists of a tower, a ship and a small entrance porch. The entire masonry is made of quarry stone and plastered white. The oldest part is the Romanesque tower. It is dated between 1300 and 1350. The wall thickness is one meter. Its narrow window niches were usable as loopholes, so that a defensive use can be assumed. During excavations in the tower in the first half of the 20th century, the teacher Ludwig Schneider discovered a single grave with a male corpse at a depth of two meters. Based on the found coffin handles, the Provincial Curator of the Rhine Province, Edmund Renard, dated the burial to the 14th century. Burned wooden parts and remnants of the plastering of the ceiling in the heaped floor also indicated a fire in the tower. Inscriptions in the entablature of the tower refer to the renovation of the belfry and entablature in 1680.

The ship was built from 1841 in place of an old, dilapidated nave and after a year was finished to the point that it could be inaugurated on November 13, 1842. It is divided on both long sides by three large arched windows and provided with a half-hip roof. Before the new building in 1841, the church is said to have been very similar to the one in neighboring Erda. The tower was open to the nave and formed a kind of apse with places for the elderly. In the new construction, the tower was separated from the nave by a partition and converted into a sacristy . The excavations in the tower also showed that the floor of the old church was about one meter lower than the current one.

The cemetery is attached to the building. The tombstone for Pastor Friedrich Wilhelm Petri and his wife Aenne, who are buried at the foot of the tower, are embedded in the outer wall of the tower. At the staircase from the village to the church is the memorial for the 13 fallen soldiers of the First World War. It was inaugurated on October 7, 1923. and is designed in the form of a pillar with an iron cross on top. After the Second World War it was expanded to include the 27 names of those killed in the last war.

Furnishing

Window and tombstone on the church tower

By separating the choir tower , the nave now forms a flat-roofed hall. The axially aligned pulpit on the east wall, the altar in front of it and the three-sided gallery with the organ on the west side determine the space. Before the new building from 1841, the pulpit stood on the side on the northern corner. The entire woodwork is colored in different light brown tones. A wall saying above the pulpit reads: "Always rely on the Lord, for the Lord God is an eternal rock, Isaiah 26: 4". Frescoes in the tower's window niches date back to the 14th century. However, they are whitewashed. During a renovation in the years 1967–1968, the interior was restored uniformly in a late classicist style from around 1850. Since the altar at that time with its dark wooden paneling did not fit into the desired overall picture, it was replaced by an altar made of black and white Lahn marble , which came from a church near Idstein. The community in the Taunus had given it free of charge. The missing rear wall of the altar could be made with Schupbacher marble, although the marble quarrying had already stopped there.

organ

Großaltenstädten received an organ for the first time in 1766 . It was a used instrument that had previously stood in one of the Wetzlar monasteries and, after some quarrels about the acquisition costs, was transported to major cities. The installation was delayed until 1767. First an organ gallery and a bellows housing had to be built behind the church.

The organ may not have been in use for a long time, because it has been handed down from 1824 that there was no functioning organ at the time, but that there was a defective "little organ" on the church granary, which was probably the instrument purchased in 1766 . The then village teacher Georg Karl Backes repaired it with the help of a carpenter.

Today's organ was built by the Raßmann company in Möttau. It cost 2200 marks and was inaugurated on June 12, 1892. It has its place on the gallery on the west side. The instrument is similar to the organ in neighboring Erda, which is roughly the same age and comes from the same manufacturer. The organ in large cities has seven registers , which are distributed on a manual and pedal . The disposition is as follows:

I Manual C–
Principal 8th'
Dumped 8th'
Salicional 8th'
octave 4 ′
Hollow flute 4 ′
Pedal C–
Sub bass 16 ′
Violon bass 8th'

Peal

In big cities, the ringing traditionally consists of three bells. The two oldest date from 1453 and were cast by Johann Bruwiller. The bell inscription “O rex glorise veni cum pace Ihesus maria S Antonius, O King of Glory come with peace Jesus, Mary and St. Anthony ”suggests that the church was dedicated to Saint Anthony . In addition to the two bells from 1453, another, the smallest, came from 1787. It was cast by the Rincker company . It was delivered and melted down during the First World War. In 1924 the Schilling company in Apolda / Thuringia had a new bell cast. It weighed 100 kilos, was 57 cm in diameter and cost 720 Rentenmarks. There were additional costs of 120 marks for transport and suspension.

Church from the north

In 1942 two bells had to be delivered again to be melted down. It was the largest bell and the Schilling bell from 1924. While the big bell was found in the bell cemetery in Hamburg after the end of the war and could be retrieved in August 1947, the Schilling bell has disappeared. Your seat in the belfry is empty to this day. With the manufacture of a new bell by the Rincker company, the ringing was completed again in 1954. The new bell is now the largest of the peals. It hangs in the middle part of the tower and indicates hours and half-hours with its deep sound. A chime has been in use since the renovation in 1967/68. In the tower, old porcelain guides for the bell ropes have been preserved as remnants of the historical bell technology on the ceiling. The rusty frame of the former clockwork with the wire rope drums and the stone weights that were used to drive the tower clock has also been preserved.

literature

  • Georg Karl Backes: memories from the youth of an elementary school teacher. Compiled by Ernst Frei, Schotten 1897.
  • Hans Hermann Hagmann: History of the Evangelical Churches in Hohensolms (1964–1985), Großaltenstädten (1964–1971) and Blasbach (1971–1985). Hohenahr 2010.
  • 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). NG Elwert, Marburg 1937, ND 1984, p. 196.
  • Maria Wenzel: Cultural monuments in Hessen. Lahn-Dill-Kreis II. Published by the State Office for Monument Preservation, Wiesbaden 2003.
  • Timo Zimmermann: Hohensolms. Valley, town, municipality and district. Hohensolms 2000.
  • Chronicle of the parish of Hohensolms-Großaltenstädten. Volume 1, 1877-1919.
  • Chronicle of the parish of Hohensolms-Großaltenstädten. Volume 2, 1920-1949.
  • Hohenahr community. Published by the Hohenahr community, Hohenahr 2006.
  • 700 years of Groß-Altenstädten. Published by the Heimat- und Kulturverein Hohenahr, Hohenahr 2011.

Web links

Commons : Evangelische Kirche Großaltenstädten  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ 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. 196.
  2. ^ Maria Wenzel: Cultural monuments in Hessen. Lahn-Dill-Kreis II. Published by the State Office for Monument Preservation, Wiesbaden 2003, p. 280.
  3. ↑ Big cities. Historical local lexicon for Hessen (as of June 8, 2018). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on February 8, 2020 .
  4. ↑ a b 700 years of Groß-Altenstädten. Published by the Heimat- und Kulturverein Hohenahr, Hohenahr 2011, p. 24.
  5. ↑ Hohenahr community. Published by the community of Hohenahr, Hohenahr 2006, p. 11.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Chronicle of the parish Hohensolms-Großaltenstädten. Volume 2, 1920-1949.
  7. ↑ Timo Zimmermann: Hohensolms. Valley, town, municipality and district. Hohensolms 2000, p. 121.
  8. ↑ a b 700 years of Groß-Altenstädten. Published by the Heimat- und Kulturverein Hohenahr, Hohenahr 2011, p. 3.
  9. ↑ a b Timo Zimmermann: Hohensolms. Valley, town, municipality and district. Hohensolms 2000, p. 123.
  10. ^ Hans Hermann Hagmann: History of the Evangelical Churches in Hohensolms (1964–1985), Großaltenstädten (1964–1971) and Blasbach (1971–1985). Hohenahr 2010, p. 10.
  11. ^ Hans Hermann Hagmann: History of the Evangelical Churches in Hohensolms (1964–1985), Großaltenstädten (1964–1971) and Blasbach (1971–1985). Hohenahr 2010, p. 61.
  12. ↑ a b c d e Maria Wenzel: Cultural monuments in Hessen. Lahn-Dill-Kreis II. Published by the State Office for Monument Preservation, Wiesbaden 2003, p. 299.
  13. ↑ Chronicle of the parish Hohensolms-Großaltenstädten. Volume 1, 1877-1919.
  14. ↑ a b Hans Hermann Hagmann: History of the Evangelical Churches in Hohensolms (1964–1985), Großaltenstädten (1964–1971) and Blasbach (1971–1985). Hohenahr 2010, pp. 55–56.
  15. ^ Georg Karl Backes: Memories from the youth of an elementary school teacher. Compiled by Ernst Frei. Schotten 1897, p. 10.
  16. ^ Georg Karl Backes: Memories from the youth of an elementary school teacher. Compiled by Ernst Frei. Scots 1897.
  17. ↑ Chronicle of the parish Hohensolms-Großaltenstädten. Volume 1, 1877-1919, pp. 129-130.
  18. ^ Franz Bösken: Sources and research on the organ history of the Middle Rhine (=  contributions to the Middle Rhine music history . Volume 7.1 ). tape 2 : The area of ​​the former administrative district of Wiesbaden. Part 1: A-K . Schott, Mainz 1975, ISBN 3-7957-1307-2 , p. 386 .
  19. ↑ a b 700 years of Groß-Altenstädten. Published by the Heimat- und Kulturverein Hohenahr, Hohenahr 2011, p. 25.

Coordinates: 50 ° 39 ′ 41.2 ″  N , 8 ° 29 ′ 16.3 ″  E