Evangelical Church Birnbach
The Evangelical Church of Birnbach in the Rhineland-Palatinate district of Altenkirchen is one of the oldest Romanesque churches in the Westerwald . The first documentary mention goes back to 1131. Originally the church was presumably consecrated to St. Jakob , as the largest bell from 1512, which is no longer available today, bore the inscription "SENT JAKOB HEISSE ICH". Under Saynian rule the church became a Lutheran parish church in 1561 . Today the church belongs to the parish of Birnbach, which is assigned to the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland .
history
middle Ages
The first documented mention of a church in Birnbach dates from March 31, 1131 (according to other sources March 21, 1131), when the goods of the Bonn Cassius Foundation were listed in a confirmation bull issued by Pope Innocent II in Liège . In Birnbach the Cassius monastery had rights to a court and the church with the whole tithe ( Curtim Berenbach et ecclesiam cum tota decima ). Until the Reformation, the church and parish belonged to the Auelgau district of Siegburg of the Archdeaconate “St. Cassii ”in Bonn in the Archdiocese of Cologne .
The parish of Birnbach
Since Birnbach was also the seat of a (secular) parish court from the 15th to the beginning of the 17th century, the localities that were already parish at that time are known (the dates indicate the first documentary mention in the court documents):
- Niederölfen (1430); Rimbach (1514); Hemmelzen , Neitersen and Wölmersen (1530 and 1556); Hottenseifen (1593); Acker, Birnbach , Fladersbach, Hasselbach , Hilkhausen, Leingen, Marenbach, Oberirsen , Oberölfen , Werkhausen and Weyerbusch , (1579 and around 1610).
The hamlet of Hottenseifen is believed to have perished in the Thirty Years' War . The villages of Irlen, Ochsenbruch and Wiesplacken are listed in the "Nassau Annals" as belonging to the parish in 1815.
reformation
In 1561, the sovereign, Count Adolf von Sayn (1538–1568; ruled 1560–1568) carried out the Lutheran Reformation in his county. One of his successors, Count Wilhelm von Sayn-Wittgenstein (1569–1623; ruled 1605–1623) introduced the Calvinist Reformed teaching in 1605 . The pastor from Birnbach was expelled, the remaining jewelry, altar and baptismal font from the “Catholic time” were removed from the church and the interior was whitewashed. After the county of Sayn-Hachenburg came to Prussia and to the province of Grand Duchy of Lower Rhine in 1815 , the " Uniate Evangelical Church " was founded, an association of the Lutheran and Reformed confessions to which the Birnbach church belonged from 1820 on.
Building history
Around the year 1200 a wooden church was replaced by a stone church, parts of this church from around 1200 have been preserved to this day. The southern half-timbered porch (side entrance) was built in the 17th century.
On June 22, 1892, the church tower and parts of the roof were damaged by lightning strikes . The church tower was laid down and the open west side of the nave was temporarily closed. At first the idea was to rebuild the church as a whole, because it was already considered dilapidated before the lightning strike . After a generous donation from the Elberfeld manufacturer Emil Weyerbusch , whose ancestors came from Oberölfen , it was decided to rebuild. In connection with the repair of the destroyed parts, the nave was extended by a fifth yoke to the west and the tower was rebuilt in its original shape. With regard to the church tower, drawings had to be made from memory. The remaining parts of the church were also renewed and in 1899 a sacristy was added to the northeast corner. The renovations were completed in 1900. The architect was Ludwig Hofmann (1862–1933) from Herborn.
In the spring of 1945 the brickwork, windows and doors of the church were badly damaged by fire. The first repairs were carried out in the post-war years, a comprehensive restoration took place in the early 1970s and was completed in 1973. In 2000 the church was renovated again.
Parish
Today's parish of Birnbach is part of the Evangelical Church District Altenkirchen in the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland. The parish includes around 2,400 Protestant Christians who live in the local parishes of Birnbach , Hasselbach , Hemmelzen , Oberirsen , Werkhausen , Weyerbusch and Wölmersen . In Birnbach the parish maintains a parish hall and the cemetery for the local parishes of Birnbach, Hemmelzen, Oberirsen and Wölmersen. The parish in Weyerbusch also maintains a community center.
Construction and equipment
Church building
According to the Handbook of German Art Monuments - Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland , the church in Birnbach belongs to a group of simple Romanesque country churches that stretch on the right bank of the Rhine from the Oberbergischen to the Westerwald .
The church building is a three-aisled, flat-roofed pillar basilica with no transepts, with an undivided west tower, square choir and semicircular apse . On the outside of the tower there is a so-called stair screw. The half-timbered portal on the south side bears the year 1687. The masonry of the church is made of exposed rubble stones, the tower and the gable roof of the nave are covered with slate. Several 18th century tombstones are built into the outer wall. Above the main entrance there is a representation of Moses with the command panels.
The interior of the church is simple, the baroque wooden pulpit was created around 1680 by a local master.
organ
The first organ in Birnbach was purchased in 1775, it was a "used organ" that previously stood in the Protestant church in Neunkirchen in Siegerland and was created around 1660 by an unknown organ builder. Around 1800 this organ was no longer functional. In 1805 the second, larger organ was purchased, which was replaced by a third organ around 1900 in connection with the renovation of the church. Today's organ is the fourth.
The instrument on the gallery was created in 1985 by the Hamburg company Rudolf von Beckerath Orgelbau , taking into account the more than 300 year old organ prospect of an earlier organ. The organ has 19 registers and a total of 1240 pipes, the longest is 2.40 m long and weighs about 18 kg.
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P
literature
- Daniel Schneider: The development of denominations in the county of Sayn in plan , in: Heimat-Jahrbuch des Kreis Altenkirchen 58 (2015), pp. 74-80.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ On denominational development cf. Daniel Schneider: The development of denominations in the county of Sayn in the plan, pp. 74-80.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Internet presence of the Evangelical Church Community Birnbach
- ↑ a b Laurenz Lersch: Niederrheinisches Jahrbuch für Geschichte, Kunst und Poetry, Volume 1-2 , 1843, page 221
- ^ Heinrich Beyer: Document book for the history of the Middle Rhine territories: From the years 1169 to 1212 , Volume 2, 1865
- ↑ a b Hellmuth Gensicke : Landesgeschichte des Westerwaldes . 3. Edition. Historical Commission for Nassau, Wiesbaden 1999, pages 339, 341, 422; ISBN 3-922244-80-7
- ↑ Hott soaps - the lost village, county home club Altenkirchen, 1975
- ↑ Annals of the Association for Nassau antiquity and historical research, Volume 9-10 , 1868, page 270
- ↑ On the general denominational development in the county, cf. Daniel Schneider: The development of denominations in the county of Sayn in the plan, pp. 74-80.
- ↑ a b leaflet of the Evangelical Church Community Birnbach
- ^ A b c Georg Dehio : Handbook of German Art Monuments - Rhineland-Palatinate, Saarland . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1984, page 116, ISBN 3-422-00382-7
- ↑ For disposition ( Memento of the original from January 18, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the parish website.
Coordinates: 50 ° 42 ′ 13 ″ N , 7 ° 35 ′ 9 ″ E