Evangelical town church (Grünberg)

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Grünberger Stadtkirche from the west

The Evangelical City Church in Grünberg in the district of Gießen ( Central Hesse ) is a neo-Romanesque hall church . It was built between 1846 and 1853 according to plans by the district architect Holzapfel. The Hessian cultural monument with its three-storey tower, on which an octagonal pointed helmet is attached, characterizes the cityscape.

history

Marienkirche in Grünberg as a predecessor of the city church
Choir from the south

At the same time as Grünberg was raised to the rank of town in 1222, the construction of a Gothic parish church began, which was completed in the 14th century. Pastors are mentioned by name in 1217 and 1234. The medieval cross-shaped church made of Lavatuff with a crossing tower , which had eight altars, was consecrated to Mary and St. George . Architecturally, it was based on the Elisabeth Church in Marburg .

In the 15th century, Grünberg belonged to the Archdeaconate of St. Johann in the Archdiocese of Mainz . With the introduction of the Reformation , the parish changed to the evangelical confession in 1526; Johannes Mengel (1527–1531, 1535–1565) was the first Lutheran pastor to work here. Except for the altar in front of the choir , all other altars have been removed. Grünberg has been the seat of the deanery since 1634.

The building had suffered major damage in the Thirty Years' War , mainly caused by lightning strikes. In 1770, three vaults collapsed in whole or in part, one after the other. Due to the dilapidated condition, the organ was relocated and the church closed in 1812. The services took place in the hospital church for over 40 years. After one of the four crossing piers had already burst in 1809, Hofkammerrat Hofmann suggested the necessary safety measures for the 31 meter high crossing tower in 1815, since “the greatest danger for the tower to collapse is present and the lives of many citizens and the state of the surrounding houses are some unfortunate coincidence be disclosed ". Because the measures were not carried out, the tower collapsed on March 20, 1816 in the afternoon at 2 p.m., whereby large parts of the nave were destroyed. Only the western long sides and the south-western gable side with the main portal remained. After several days from the beginning of March 1816 individual stones had fallen from the cross vault into the nave, the collapse was foreseeable and a few hundred citizens gathered on March 20 to watch the spectacle. In retrospect, in addition to the structural damage, the poor building structure made of slightly weathered tuff and the fact that the choir had been added to the ship at a later date were responsible for the collapse.

The ruins of the old church were torn down in 1839/40. On January 15, 1842, the town, which had to be built, decided to build a new building. Due to the difficult conditions in the post-Napoleonic period, the start of construction and construction work were delayed. The earthworks for the laying of the foundation stone began on April 21, 1846. After setbacks, it was decided on April 11, 1848 to continue the work. The roof was covered in autumn 1849, and the tower was completed on August 28, 1850, and the top of the tower was erected on October 12, 1850. Today's building was built after seven years of construction at great sacrifice. The church was consecrated on August 28, 1853.

From 1965 to 1968, the interior of the church was redesigned according to plans by Peter Weyrauch, the then architect of the regional church. In addition, the roof and windows were renovated. The base area was converted into a parish hall as a basement, rectangular windows were inserted and the interior of the church was redesigned after the floor was raised. The principal pieces altar, pulpit and organ were given new locations. The side galleries and the coffered ceiling were removed and the paintings ranged. The far-reaching renovation did not go unchallenged, but the new usage options made it possible to secure the existing building.

architecture

Grave monument in the southeast with the "female tear"
Stepped tower portal

The exposed church, oriented from northeast to southwest, is built in the city center from Londorfer basalt lava . Based on the Neo-Romanesque, a separate architectural style should be established. The long sides are divided by pilaster strips that merge into round arch friezes at the top and divided into a third of the wall height by a surrounding coffin cornice . In the upper fields, large, arched, two-part windows are lined up, while rectangular windows are set in the base zone. Both gable sides have corner pilasters that merge into a round arch frieze. The northeast side has a two-lane tracery window with quatrefoil on both sides of the tower .

The tower on a square floor plan in the northeast is integrated into the nave. It has three brick floors, above which an eight-sided pointed helmet rises, which is crowned by a tower button, cross and weathercock. The total height is 53.10 meters. A circuit above the tower shaft provides a view of the city and the surrounding area. The portal is flanked on both sides by a seven-step row with three three-quarter columns, on whose capitals a protruding architrave rests. Above it is a tympanum with seven steps , showing a cross surrounded by tendrils. In the bell chamber there is a three-part bell at a height of 28 meters with the tones d 1 , f 1 and g 1 in the Te Deum motif. The largest of the three bells, which all hang on cranked yokes, was cast by Laux Rucker in 1602 ; the middle bell was cast by Dilman Schmid in 1684 and the smallest is from 1949 by the Rincker brothers .

The retracted choir in the southwest has corner pilasters with a round arch frieze. The rectangular entrance door to the community room has a simple canopy above which an arched window is let. A three-lane round arched window in a round arch panel illuminates the choir room. The windows have stained glass made up of triangles. The window panes on the long sides are dominated by gray tones, while the choir area stands out in warm red tones and draws the attention of the worshiper to the word and sacrament.

In front of the south side there is a grave monument for General Ernst Friedrich von Reden, who was fatally injured in the Seven Years War near Atzenhain. The statue with the “female teardrop” is a copy of the original by Samuel Nahl , created in 1770 and placed in the Grünberg “Barefoot Monastery”. In 2015, grave slabs related to the Ysenburg family were found in the spacious parish garden.

Furnishing

View to the southwest to the choir

The simply designed interior is completed by a flat ceiling that is clad with wooden panels. The underside of the organ gallery in the northeast has the same cladding, while the parapet has lamellar wooden strips. The entrance area under the gallery is separated by a glass front and provides access to the organ gallery via a staircase. A carved wood Madonna with the child is placed next to the entrance door. The furnishings are functional and almost all date from the interior renovation at the end of the 1960s. On Vasa sacra there are two late Gothic Holy Communion goblets as well as two silver wine jugs and a host box with the coat of arms of the Isenburg-Büdingen family from the 17th century.

Since this extensive renovation, the concept of the sermon church with an altar, pulpit and organ on the central axis has been abandoned. A large recessed rectangular opening connects the nave with the choir. The altar area is raised by three steps. The wide altar table is set up in front of the choir and takes up the entire width of the opening. In front of the opening hangs a large wooden crucifix of the three-nail type with the inscription INRI from the period around 1500, which used to hang in the Grünberg Hospital Church. There are stone bas-reliefs on either side of the opening showing people walking towards the center. The pulpit is in the west corner and the new organ is in the north-east gallery. The two large, arched paintings by Carl Geist from 1908 have been hanging in the “Room of Silence” behind the altar ever since. They show Jesus in Gethsemane and Jesus' resurrection and until then they flanked the organ. The Luther picture donated by the Grünberger Choir Association is placed in the entrance area between two song boards from 1853. In front of it is an iron-clad money box from the Gothic period. The wooden chairs in olive-gray frame with curved cheeks are the only furnishings from the time the neo-Romanesque church was built. It leaves a central aisle free and offers space for around 600 visitors.

organ

View to the northeast to the organ gallery

Caspar Schütz from Laubach built  an organ for fl. 520 in 1593 . Georg Henrich Wagner repaired the instrument in 1681, which was replaced in 1703 by a new organ with twelve registers by Florentinus Wang from Lützenburg and moved to the hospital church in 1812. For the new church building, Friedrich Wilhelm Bernhard built a side-playing instrument with 25 registers, which were divided into two manuals and a pedal . The Lich company Förster & Nicolaus Orgelbau created a new two-manual organ with 23 registers in 1969. The disposition is as follows:

I Hauptwerk C – g 3
Principal 8th'
Dumped 8th'
Octave 4 ′
Gemshorn 4 ′
Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Octave 2 ′
Mixture IV-VI 2 ′
Trumpet 8th'
II Positive C-g 3
Reed flute 8th'
Principal 4 ′
Forest flute 2 ′
Sesquialtera II 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Scharff III – IV 1 ⁄ 2 ′
bassoon 16 ′
oboe 8th'
Tremulant
Pedal C – f 1
Principal 16 ′
octave 8th'
Dacked bass 8th'
Hollow flute 4 ′
Field whistle 1'
Backset V 4 ′
trombone 16 ′
Trumpet 4 ′

Pastor

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. 750.
  • Wilhelm Diehl : Construction book for the Protestant parishes of the sovereign lands and the acquired areas of Darmstadt (= Hassia sacra. Volume 8). Self-published, Darmstadt 1935, pp. 465–468.
  • Carl Glaser: Contributions to the history of the city of Grünberg in the Grand Duchy of Hesse (= archive for Hessian history and antiquity. Suppl. 1 ). Reprint from 1846. Weihert, Darmstadt 1979.
  • State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.), Karlheinz Lang (edit.): Cultural monuments in Hesse. District of Giessen II. Buseck, Fernwald, Grünberg, Langgöns, Linden, Pohlheim, Rabenau (= monument topography Federal Republic of Germany ). Theiss, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-8062-2178-7 , p. 137 f.
  • Heinz P. Probst: The architectural and art monuments in the greater community of Grünberg. Issue 1. Churches (= series of publications of the Verkehrsverein 1896 Grünberg eV Local History Series. Volume 2). Grünberg-Queckborn: Heinz Probst, 2001, pp. 25-28.
  • Heinrich Walbe : The art monuments of the Gießen district. Vol. 3. Southern part without Arnsburg. Hessisches Denkmalarchiv, Darmstadt 1933, pp. 199–206.
  • Peter Weyrauch : The churches of the old district of Giessen. Mittelhessische Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Gießen 1979, p. 74 f.

Web links

Commons : Stadtkirche Grünberg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.), Lang (edit.): Cultural monuments in Hesse. 2010, p. 138.
  2. ↑ Walbe: The art monuments of the district of Giessen. 1933, p. 199.
  3. ^ Glaser: Contributions to the history of the city of Grünberg. 1979, pp. 64-66.
  4. ^ 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. 55.
  5. ↑ Mengel, Johannes. Hessian biography. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on April 17, 2020 .
  6. ↑ Grünberg. Historical local dictionary for Hessen. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on April 17, 2020 .
  7. ^ Glaser: Contributions to the history of the city of Grünberg. 1979, p. 67.
  8. ^ Diehl: Construction book for the Protestant parishes. 1935, p. 467 f.
  9. ↑ Walbe: The art monuments of the district of Giessen. 1933, p. 200.
  10. ^ Glaser: Contributions to the history of the city of Grünberg. 1979, p. 64.
  11. ↑ a b c 160 years of ev. Grünberg Church: Lecture on the history of construction . In: Gießener Allgemeine Zeitung of August 29, 2013, accessed on April 18, 2020.
  12. ^ Weyrauch: The churches of the old district Gießen. 1979, p. 74.
  13. ↑ Probst: The architectural and art monuments. 2001, p. 28.
  14. ↑ Probst: The architectural and art monuments. 2001, p. 27.
  15. ^ State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.), Lang (edit.): Cultural monuments in Hesse. 2010, p. 137.
  16. ↑ Robert Schäfer: Hessian bell inscriptions (PDF file; 37.7 MB), in: Archives for Hessian history and antiquity. 15, 1884, pp. 475-544, here: p. 528.
  17. ↑ gruenberg.de: Historical city tour , accessed on April 17, 2020 (PDf).
  18. ↑ (dis): Rare find behind nettles. In: Gießener Allgemeine Zeitung of May 23, 2015, number 118, p. 53.
  19. ↑ Homepage of the Evangelical Church Community Grünberg: Our Congregation , accessed on April 17, 2020.
  20. ^ Franz Bösken, Hermann Fischer: Sources and research on the organ history of the Middle Rhine (=  contributions to the Middle Rhine music history . Volume 29.1 ). tape 3 : Former province of Upper Hesse. Part 1: A-L . Schott, Mainz 1988, ISBN 3-7957-1330-7 , p. 426 .
  21. ↑ Organ of the Ev. Stadtkirche Grünberg , accessed on April 17, 2020.

Coordinates: 50 ° 35 ′ 26.9 ″  N , 8 ° 57 ′ 39.6 ″  E