Evangelical Church Lohrbach
The Evangelical Church in Lohrbach , a district of Mosbach in the Neckar-Odenwald district in northern Baden-Württemberg , dates back to at least the 13th century. Today's Protestant church was built in 1818 while retaining some of the older components such as the tower substructure.
history
Little is known about the original church conditions of Lohrbach. For the neighboring village of Hartheim , which was later abandoned, a basilica is already documented in 770, which was located in today's Lohrbacher Gewann Kirchle . It is not known whether there was a church building in Lohrbach at that time. Another old cemetery in Lohrbach has not yet been archaeologically proven, so that the cemetery around the Protestant church until 1835 is probably Lohrbach's cemetery in use and the church could therefore go back to the first church building in Lohrbach. It is noticeable that in the Middle Ages the church was still outside of the village, which has only recently grown to the east, so that the church is now in the center of the village.
Before the new building in 1818, which essentially gave the church its present-day appearance, archaeological studies have shown at least four stages of expansion of the previous structure. Based on the oldest floor plans, which indicate a nave of 16 × 10 meters with a square tower built to the east with a side length of 7.35 meters, the nave was successively enlarged and raised in several stages, whereby the wall thickness of old walls was also strengthened and increased the structure of the tower was changed. The tower substructure is the oldest part of the church. It contains frescoes from around 1300, which are probably related to the Order of St. John , which at that time was in the possession of the nearby Lohrbach Castle . Under Elector Ludwig V , the basement of the tower was given a net vault in 1514 . Until the time of the Reformation (1556 by Elector Ottheinrich ), the high altar was also located there. Already during the renovation in 1514 the frescoes were no longer considered, they were whitewashed later. Over time, the former tower choir was even walled up and only used as a bell and coal store.
When the church was divided in the Electoral Palatinate in 1705, the church came to the Reformed community. In the middle of the 18th century, extensive renovation measures were necessary on the tower, and the necessary modifications and extensions could not be implemented for the time being due to a lack of financial resources. It was not until the years 1817 to 1819 that the church was extensively rebuilt, which gave it its current form as a classicist hall church . On the occasion of this renovation, an organ built by Overmann in Heidelberg in 1817 was procured.
For the church expansion from 1817 to 1819 it was necessary to build over part of the old cemetery. Other parts of the cemetery were affected by the construction work. The cemetery was still occupied until 1835, before a new cemetery was laid out elsewhere. The old cemetery was completely leveled as early as 1836 and was used as a community fruit growing school. The old cemetery wall was repaired with parts of the battered old tombstones to protect the fruit trees from wild damage. Therefore, some historical tombstone fragments have been preserved in the wall.
During a renovation in 1950, the frescoes in the tower basement were exposed again.
literature
- Leonhard Mezler: 1200 years of Lohrbach - 765 to 1965 , municipality of Lohrbach 1965
Coordinates: 49 ° 24 ′ 1.3 ″ N , 9 ° 8 ′ 28.7 ″ E