Evangelical Church of Ober-Bessingen

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View from the northeast

The Evangelical Church , also known as the “Heiligkreuzkapelle”, in Ober-Bessingen, a district of Lich in the district of Gießen ( Hessen ), was built around 1400. The Gothic church with its roof turret shapes the townscape and is a Hessian cultural monument .

history

St. Dorothea with donor

A church in Ober-Bessingen is documented for the first time in 1316, which at the time was a branch of Münster (Laubach) . After she was parished near Nieder-Bessingen , she was taken care of again by Münster from 1507.

The church was built at the transition from the 14th to the 15th century. At the end of the Middle Ages, Ober-Bessingen was part of the Münster district.

The church was rebuilt around 1500 or at the beginning of the 16th century. A chapel was built on the south side, in the eastern niche of which a cross relic was exhibited, which was visited by pilgrims. This is indicated by the name of the adjacent parcel “Heiligenkreuzfeld” and the “Wällerweg”. In the course of the extension, some windows were enlarged.

In the course of a renovation in 1699 (name on the back of the choir arch), baroque paintings were added to the windows of the nave and to the vault. Medieval paintings were uncovered during renovations in 1954 and 2001/2002.

Since April 1, 2014, the four so-called WORM congregations, which previously had two pastors, have been connected to the parish and are looked after by a pastor's office. WORM is an acronym from Wetterfeld , Ober-Bessingen, Röthges and Münster .

architecture

North side of the church in Ober-Bessingen
Inside view of the choir

The hall church, which faces north-east, is located on the south-western edge of the village in the middle of a walled cemetery. It is made of quarry stone masonry that is plastered. The jambs of windows and other structural elements are made of Lung stone . The church has a slightly drawn-in choir with a 5/8 end. The three-bay nave has cross ribbed vaults, the late Gothic chapel on the south side has a square floor plan and the choir has a star vault. The roof beams of the nave and choir are still original. A hagioscope is walled up on the south wall . The central attached, square roof turret has four triangular gables that merge into an eight-sided pointed helmet. The roof turret, like the ship's gable roof, is completely slated and crowned by a tower button, cross and weathercock.

The pointed arched portals with bevels in the west and south date from the time the church was built, as do the narrow pointed arched windows. The passage from the chapel and to the nave across the entire width was created later; the original ogival south portal is now walled up. Large pointed arch windows, some of which are equipped with tracery, illuminate the interior. The narrow, ogival and bevelled triumphal arch is fitted into a wide belt arch, which serves to support the ridge. The west gable of the nave and the gable of the chapel are crowned with stone crosses.

Furnishing

Interior to the southwest

Remains of late Gothic wall paintings were uncovered in the choir and chapel in 1954 and above the triumphal arch in 2001/02. The Last Judgment is shown above the arch, the Judgment Seat of Christ in the center above the top of the arch and the Fall of Hell to the right . On the left you can see the gate of heaven, the fresco to the left of the pulpit is interpreted as a rich man and poor Lazarus . To the right of the choir arch, the crucifixion scene is partly destroyed because of the relocated gallery. Frescoes on the eastern wall of the chapel and on the northern wall of the choir show a saint (possibly St. Dorothea ) with donor, in the chapel under a keel arch with tendrils. The vault ribs are marbled in shades of red and end in round keystones with quatrefoil, rose and coat of arms. Flame ornaments are painted around the keystones.

The gallery on the south side was originally built into the choir and dates from 1684. The flat parapets are ornamentally painted with floral motifs. The motif-free west gallery serves as the installation site for the organ. The paintings of Christ and the Apostles were created in 1729. The wooden polygonal pulpit from the 17th century on the left side of the triumphal arch rests on a carved foot. It has no sound cover. The baptismal font is designed on eight sides. The body of the crucifix on the altar is originally made of gold-plated brass, the cross and base date from 1614. The Romanesque body, created around 1200, is 15 cm high and 12 cm wide and one of the earliest goldsmiths in the Gießen district. Both feet of Christ rest side by side on a suppedaneum .

organ

Bernhard organ from 1833

In 1833, Johann Hartmann Bernhard built a new organ with ten stops on a manual and pedal - his 33rd organ, according to the inscription on the console. The flat prospectus is divided into five fields and adapts to the vault. In 1891 Johann Georg Förster exchanged the third 3 ′ for a Salicional 8 ′ and installed a new fan for a total of 506 marks. Otherwise the organ was apparently unchanged until 2001. During the renovation of the church in 2001/2002, the organ was also expanded. As part of the subsequent reassembly, changes were obviously made by the workshop that carried out the work: The fifth 3 'was restored, but as a "Naßart" and instead of the flute 8' there has since been a sifflet 1 'in the organ. The current disposition of the monument organ is as follows:

Manual C – f 3
Drone 8th'
Gemshorn 8th'
Principal 4 ′
Gedact 4 ′
Wet type 3 ′
Octav 2 ′
Sifflet 1'
Mixture III 1 1 ⁄ 2  ′
Pedal C – d 1
Sub-bass 16 ′
Octavbass 8th'

Bells

Small bell with the evangelist symbols

Before the First World War, the roof turret housed a triple bell. A small medieval bell without an inscription had cracked at the time (diameter 0.40 meters). The second bell was cast by Johann Peter Bach from Hungen in 1791 (diameter 0.63 meters), the third by Friedrich Otto from Gießen in 1838 (diameter 0.71 meters). Bells 1 and 3 had to be delivered to the armaments industry in 1917. When three new bells were purchased in 1922, the second was given in payment. Rincker and son cast three new bells. The largest (diameter 0.77 meters) had the inscription "A strong castle is our God" and shows a relief with a crucifix and two angels. The middle one (diameter 0.65 meters) had the inscription “Consecrated to our fallen in difficult times” with a relief of the Iron Cross in laurel. The third one (diameter 0.57 meters) with the inscription “Pray and work” has the four evangelist symbols . The two large ones were replaced by two bells from the Grüninger bell foundry after the Second World War in 1950 .

literature

  • Georg Dehio : Handbook of German art monuments , Hessen I. Administrative districts of Giessen and Kassel. Edited by Folkhard Cremer, Tobias Michael Wolf and others. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-422-03092-3 , p. 710.
  • Wilhelm Diehl : Construction book for the Protestant parishes of the sovereign lands and the acquired areas of Darmstadt. (Hassia sacra; 8). Self-published, Darmstadt 1935, p. 215 f.
  • State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.); Karlheinz Lang (Red.): Cultural monuments in Hesse. District of Giessen I. Hungen, Laubach, Lich, Reiskirchen. (= Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany ). Theiss, Stuttgart 2008, ISBN 978-3-8062-2177-0 , pp. 540 f.
  • Hartmut Miethe, Heinz-Gerhard Schuette: Gothic paintings . Ed .: Förderkreis Kunst-Mensch-Kirche (=  Christian art in Upper Hesse . Volume 1 ). Grünberg 2010.
  • Heinrich Walbe: The art monuments of the Gießen district. Vol. 3. Southern part . Hessisches Denkmalarchiv, Darmstadt 1933, pp. 337–343.
  • Peter Weyrauch : The churches of the old district of Giessen. Mittelhessische Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Gießen 1979, p. 142 f.

Web links

Commons : Evangelical Church (Ober-Bessingen)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse: Cultural monuments in Hesse. 2008, p. 547.
  2. ^ Weyrauch: The churches of the old district Gießen. 1979, p. 134.
  3. ↑ Ober-Bessingen. Historical local dictionary for Hessen. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on September 7, 2013 .
  4. ^ Weyrauch: The churches of the old district Gießen. 1979, p. 142.
  5. ^ Official Journal of the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau from January 1, 2013, p. 70: Münster, Ober-Bessingen, Röthges and Wetterfeld , accessed on March 26, 2018 (PDF).
  6. ↑ a b Dehio: Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler, Hessen I. 2008, p. 710.
  7. ↑ Walbe: The art monuments of the district of Giessen. 1933, p. 341.
  8. ^ Cultural monuments in Hesse. District of Giessen I. 2008, p. 546.
  9. ^ Miethe, Schuette: Gothic paintings. 2010, pp. [18-19].
  10. ^ Weyrauch: The churches of the old district Gießen. 1979, p. 143.
  11. ↑ Walbe: The art monuments of the district of Giessen. 1933, p. 342.
  12. ^ Franz Bösken , Hermann Fischer : Sources and research on the organ history of the Middle Rhine (=  contributions to the Middle Rhine music history . Volume 29.2 ). tape 3 : Former province of Upper Hesse. Part 2: M-Z . Schott, Mainz 1988, ISBN 3-7957-1331-5 , p. 701 .
  13. ^ Message from the chairman of the church council of January 4, 2015.
  14. ^ Organ directory , accessed on April 18, 2020.
  15. ↑ Walbe: The art monuments of the district of Giessen. 1933, p. 343.

Coordinates: 50 ° 32 ′ 18.9 ″  N , 8 ° 54 ′ 12.9 ″  E