Evangelical Laurentius Church (Bieber)

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Evangelical Laurentius Church in Bieber
Church with defense and cemetery wall

The Evangelical Laurentius Church (also: Upper Church ) in Biebergemünd - Bieber in the Main-Kinzig district ( Hesse ) is the village's medieval village church.

history

The former fortified church stands on a walled cemetery on the slope above the village. It was first mentioned in 1339 as the "Totenhofkirche". In the pre-Reformation period, the patronage was with Saint Martin . The church belonged to the Archdiocese of Mainz . The central church authority was the Archdeaconate St. Peter and Alexander in Aschaffenburg , Dean Rodgau .

With the Reformation in the county of Hanau-Münzenberg in the middle of the 16th century, it became Lutheran . A second church, the Lower Church, was built in Bieber in the 18th century for the faithful of the Reformed denomination , especially miners who had moved there .

With the Hanauer Union , the merger of the two Protestant regional churches in 1818, one of the church buildings became superfluous. The Evangelical Laurentius Church has only served as a cemetery chapel and special worship events since 1966 . The lower church is today the Protestant parish church.

Building

At its core, it is a Romanesque hall church with a retracted choir tower , which, however, has been considerably rebuilt several times. The tower probably dates from the 12th century. During the Thirty Years War the church was badly damaged by fire in 1636, but rebuilt around 1660. The Romanesque nave was widened. The altar triptych also comes from the time of the reconstruction after the fire. It shows a crucifixion group in the shrine and the four evangelists on the inside and outside wings and was painted by the painter Sebastian Vogt, who works in Karlstadt am Main. In 1756 a new wing was added at a right angle to the south of the existing building according to plans by Jacob Sigismund Waitz von Eschen, and portals and windows were redesigned in Baroque style, making the church a transverse church . The pulpit also dates from this period. Today's painted galleries were added in 1797.

The church is a cultural monument due to the Hessian Monument Protection Act .

Reredos

The baroque reredos depicting a crucifixion dates from 1660. After several repairs, it was examined in 2013 for restoration and restored in 2015-2019 at the State Office for Monument Preservation in Hesse .

organ

Ratzmann organ from 1890

The lateral parapet organ was built by the Ratzmann brothers in 1890 with a mechanical cone store . The five-axis prospectus is structured by pilasters . Three round arch fields are connected by two two-story flat fields. The two round arch fields on the outside are closed off by flat segment arches, the raised central field by a triangular gable. Organ builder Andreas Schmidt, Gelnhausen, restored the largely preserved organ in 2017/2018. The instrument has ten registers , which are divided into two manuals and pedal . The disposition is as follows:

I Manual C – f 3
Principal 8th'
Flute 8th'
Viola da gamba 8th'
Octave 4 ′
Cornett III
II Manual C – f 3
Darling Covered 8th'
Salicional 8th'
Flute 4 ′
Pedal C – d 1
Sub-bass 16 ′
Violonbass 8th'

Bells

Before the First World War, the Laurentiuskirche had two bronze bells made by Henschel & Sohn , Kassel in 1858, which were melted down for war purposes in 1917. The current bell was obtained after the war. These are two of the relatively rare steel bells Fa. Buderus in Wetzlar, by the bell foundry Rincker were expelled in mind. Due to the characteristic partial tone structure, the bells have a special, but very resonant sound. The instruments hang in a historic wooden bell chair on straight steel yokes and are driven by electromechanical chimes from the Herford electric motor works (HEW). The sound of the bell duet is matched to the three-part bells of the neighboring Evangelical Lower Church , with which it forms a coherent, five-part plenum in the unique tone sequence d′-fis′-ais′-h′-e ′ ′.

Dates of bells
No. Surname inscription Casting year Diameter in mm Nominal
1 Eternity bell "I call for eternity" and
"Geg. v. Buderus Wetzlar & FW Rincker Sinn " 		1920 1,400 d ′
2 Prayer bell “Stop at prayer” and
“Op. v. Buderus Wetzlar & FW Rincker Sinn " 		1920 1,170 f sharp ′

literature

  • Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments - Hesse II. Administrative region Darmstadt . (Ed .: Folkhard Cremer and others). 3. Edition. Munich 2008, p. 77.
  • Waltraud Friedrich: Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany - cultural monuments in Hesse, Main-Kinzig-Kreis II . Wiesbaden 2011, pp. 188f, ISBN 978-3-8062-2469-6 .
  • Götz J. Pfeiffer: A baroque piece of jewelery in the Protestant Upper Church in Biebergemünd-Bieber. The retable from 1660 by the Karlstadt painter Sebastian Vogt . In: Gelnhäuser Heimat-Jahrbuch 2018, pp. 88–93.
  • Christiane Weber: Biebergemünd, Bieber, retable . In: State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse (ed.): Monument Preservation and Cultural History 4-2019, p. 7f.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Götz J. Pfeiffer: A baroque piece of jewelery in the ev. Upper Church in Biebergemünd-Bieber. The retable from 1660 by the Karlstadt painter Sebastian Vogt . In: Gelnhauser Heimat-Jahrbuch . 2018, p. 88-93 .
  2. ↑ Götz J. Pfeiffer: Baroque art full of riddles The shrine reredos with paintings by Sebastian Vogt from Karlstadt in the Protestant Upper Church in Bieber . In: MKK-Mitteilungsbatt. Center for regional history . tape 42 , 2018, p. 4-9 .
  3. ↑ Kathrin Ellwardt: Church building between evangelical ideals and absolutist rule. The cross churches in the Hessian area from the Reformation century to the Seven Years War . Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2004, ISBN 3-937251-34-0
  4. ↑ Friedrich.
  5. ^ Weber, p. 7.
  6. ^ Weber, p. 8.
  7. ^ Weber, p. 7.
  8. ^ Organ in Bieber , accessed on January 16, 2018.

Coordinates: 50 ° 9 ′ 33.2 ″  N , 9 ° 19 ′ 43.5 ″  E