Evangelical town church (Dillenburg)

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South side of the city church
View from the east of the choir

The Evangelical Parish Church is the historic old town church in Dillenburg in the Lahn-Dill district in Central Hesse . The late Gothic hall church with five-eighth closure and west tower is a cultural monument due to the Hessian Monument Protection Act .

history

The church is located on the steep slope of the Dillenberg, on which the Dillenburg Castle initially stood and where, from the second half of the 15th century, the Dillenburg Castle was expanded as the count's residence of the Nassau-Dillenburg family . The area originally belonged to the castle freedom . The church was built with a single nave over the burial place of the Ottonian line of the counts and later princes of Nassau from 1490 . This burial place was presumably in a Lady Chapel mentioned for the first time in 1454 . It is controversial whether the new building was built next to or in place of the chapel or with the inclusion of parts of the chapel. Since the vault of the choir is provided with a keystone , which bears a very original form of the coat of arms of the Counts of Nassau, which was only in use until around 1369, it is concluded that at least this part of the choir dates from the 14th century and is said to have been part of the original Marian and funeral chapel. However, this assumes that the keystone was not taken over as a spoil from an older building in the vault.

The new building was consecrated on June 3, 1491, but was not completed until 1501. It was the first parish church in Dillenburg. It was previously in the neighboring village of Feldpach. The new church was initially under the patronage of John the Baptist , the apostles and the evangelists .

In 1530 it became a Protestant church in the course of the Reformation . In 1582 there was a reformed change of confession. 1594–1597, the nave and west tower were converted into a sermon church by Konrad Rossbach . Around 1680 a princely crypt was built on the mountain side in the south. Until 1739 the church was the burial place of the house Nassau-Dillenburg . For 200 years it housed the Latin school founded in 1551, from which today's Wilhelm-von-Oranien-Schule emerged. In 1769 the House of Orange -Nassau transferred the building to the parish, which had it restored in 1771/1772 after the fire in 1760.

The interior was restored again in 1988–1990 with a view to the 500th anniversary of the consecration. An extensive roof renovation took place in 2014–2016.

architecture

View from the northeast with the stair tower from 1902
Ground plan before the construction of the stair tower
North portal from 1594

The single-nave, east-facing church is a late Gothic hall building made of plastered quarry stone masonry. The two-bay choir with a 5/8 end and pointed arched windows with tracery is the oldest structure. Inside, a large pointed arch opens the choir to the flat-roofed nave. The star vault of the choir has profiled ribs that rest on consoles . During the Renaissance , as a result of the Reformation in the county of Nassau-Dillenburg , the church was converted into a reformed preacher's church. Large pointed arch windows, which are divided by flat, stepped buttresses, illuminate the church. A portal on the north side (1594) and one on the south side (1597) also date from the time of the renovation by Konrad Rossbach, the doors themselves from 1827 - another portal on the choir is marked 1630.

The windowless, undivided, drawn-in west tower from the end of the 16th century is integrated into the nave. The upper floor has sound openings for the bells. The octagonal pointed helmet is crowned by the tower knob, cross and weather vane.

The unplastered stair tower at the choir dates from 1902 and has an eight-sided pointed helmet. The unplastered porch on the north side also dates from this time. The two additions in the historicism style stand out from the plastered older structures.

Furnishing

View from the ship into the choir
Neo-Gothic pulpit

Since the baroque interior was the only one that could be fully occupied, it was chosen as the basis for the renovation. Since then, the woodwork has had the baroque illusion marbling again. The inner flat beamed ceiling of the nave and its stucco medallion in the shape of a pelican come from the subsequent renovation in 1771/1772.

During the conversion into a Protestant preaching church by Konrad Rossbach (1594–1597), two-storey galleries were added on three sides , which rest on bulbous, marble-painted round columns. The interiors of the Evangelical City Church in Herborn , the Beilstein Castle Church in Beilstein and the Marienkirche in Hanau are or were designed in a similar way . The upper galleries are continued into the choir on high columns. Carved fittings structure the coffered parapets. On the south side, the gallery was given a third floor in the 18th century. The connection between the two-sided galleries along the west wall was only created in 1874. The royal box is built in above the crypt chapel on the south side of the choir. It used to be accessible from the outside, but is now only accessible from the inside. It has two arched windows to the choir.

The polygonal wooden pulpit is placed on the northern archway. The pulpit is designed in the neo-Gothic style with nuns' heads in the pulpit and rests on an eight-sided post. The sound cover dates back to the 17th century and is crowned by openwork carvings. The church stalls and the choir grille were created in the early 19th century.

organ

Oberlinger organ behind a historic prospectus

In 1659 the city had an organ built by Georg Henrich Wagner . Wagner and his son implemented the instrument in 1680 and changed it. Florentinus Wang created a new organ in 1719 with 13 stops on a manual and pedal . It was sold to Niederlibbach in 1880 because the Walcker company was building a new factory for the town church (II / P / 16). In 1933 Weigle pneumatized the organ and expanded it. Walcker rescheduled it in 1970 (II / P / 25).

When the Oberlinger company built a new instrument in Niederlibbach in 1976, Wang's old Dillenburg organ brochure was available again. From 1990 on, Oberlinger built a new instrument in several construction phases, which initially had 30 stops on two manuals and a pedal. The main factory was built behind the baroque housing, which was restored in 1990 . The pedal mechanism and swell mechanism were installed in a white painted rear housing on the rear wall. In 1993/1994 three more registers were added to the main work, in 2002 the Rückpositiv and a glockenspiel behind the crowning trombone angel and in 2005 the subbass 32 ′ in the pedal. In the course of the church renovation, the Lich company Förster & Nicolaus Orgelbau removed the organ down to the fuselage and relocated it. The reinstallation in 2016 was accompanied by a technical renovation, a re-intonation and the exchange of two registers. The current disposition of the three-manual instrument with 44 registers is as follows:

I Rückpositiv C – g 3
1. Dumped 8th'
2. Quintad 8th'
3. Transverse flute 8th'
4th Principal 4 ′
5. Coupling flute 4 ′
6th Sesquialter II 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
7th Octav 2 ′
8th. Fifth 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
9. Sif flute 1'
10. Vox humana 8th'
Tremulant
Usignolo
II Hauptwerk C – g 3
11. Bourdon 16 ′
12. Principal 8th'
13. Bourdon 8th'
14th Gamba 8th'
15th Octav 4 ′
16. Slack 4 ′
17th Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
18th Super octave 2 ′
19th Cornett V (from f 0 ) 8th'
20th Mixture IV 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
21st Tritone 1'
22nd Trumpet 8th'
Tremulant
III Swell C – g 3
23. Hollow flute 8th'
24. Dumped 8th'
25th Salicional 8th'
26th Vox coelestis (from c 0 ) 8th'
27. Principal 4 ′
28. Open flute 4 ′
29 Nasard 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
30th Octavine 2 ′
31. third 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′
32. Mixture III-IV 2 ′
33. Basson 16 ′
34. Trompette harmonique 8th'
35. Hautbois 8th'
Tremulant
Pedal C – f 1
36. Sub bass 32 ′
37. Principal bass 16 ′
38. Sub bass 16 ′
39. Octavbass 8th'
40. Dacked bass 8th'
41. Octave 4 ′
42. Octave 2 ′
43. trombone 16 ′
44. Trumpet 8th'

Peal

The bell ringing consists of three steel bells , replacements for bronze bells delivered during the First World War :

  • B-bell,
  • Des bell,
  • Es-bell,

as well as a bronze bell from 1510. This was cast on site in the presence of Hereditary Count Wilhelm des Reichen and his first wife, Walburga von Egmond , and named after her Walpurgis bell , an F bell.

Tombs

Epitaph in the choir
Coffins in the crypt chapel

As the burial place of the Nassau counts, ancestors of the Dutch royal family, it still attracts many Dutch guests to this day. Numerous members of the Nassau House were buried under the choir floor, including:

  • John IV (1410–1475), only his heart was buried here, he himself in Breda . The preserved epitaph with a picture of the heart was created in 1479 by master Jorge from Marburg.
  • William the Rich (1487–1559)
  • Juliana zu Stolberg (1506–1580), wife of William the Rich and mother of William of Orange
  • Johann VI. (1536–1606)
  • Prince Heinrich of Nassau-Dillenburg (1641–1701)
  • Princess Dorothea Elisabeth von Schlesien-Liegnitz (1646–1691), wife of Prince Heinrich or Prince Wilhelm

In the crypt chapel in the south of the choir, the coffins of four people are set up and can be viewed:

  • Prince Wilhelm of Nassau-Dillenburg (1670–1724)
  • Duchess Dorothea Johannette of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön (1678–1727), wife of Prince Wilhelm
  • Hereditary Prince Heinrich August Wilhelm (1700–1718), son of Prince Wilhelm and Princess Dorothea Johanna
  • Princess Elisabeth Charlotte (1703–1720), daughter of Prince Wilhelm and Princess Dorothea Johanna

Parish

The parishes of Eibach , Donsbach , Nieder- and Oberscheld as well as Sechshelden also belonged to the parish for over 400 years .

Church music is a focus in parish life. The church musician Karl-Peter Chilla worked here from 1982 to 2014 and founded the Dillenburger Orgelsommer concert series . The Dillenburg Organ Summer is now under the artistic direction of Petra Denker, who has been the cantor of the Protestant parish of Dillenburg since 2015.

literature

  • Folkhard Cremer, Tobias Wolf, u. a .: Georg Dehio. Handbook of German Art Monuments. Hessen I: Gießen and Kassel administrative districts. Berlin 2008, p. 173 f.
  • G. Ulrich Großmann: Central and South Hesse (= Dumont art travel guide ). Cologne 1995, ISBN 3-7701-2957-1 , p. 40.
  • Church council of the Evangelical Church Community Dillenburg: Evangelical City Church Dillenburg. [Leaflet], undated, undated
  • Ernst Petri and Rolf Teutsch: An attempt at reconstruction on the building history of the Ev. City Church. In: Rolf Teutsch (Ed.): Dillenburg's development since the Counts of Nassau had a castle built on the Dillenberg. Dillenburg 1998, pp. 40-42.
  • Rolf Teutsch: The organs . In: Rolf Teutsch (Ed.): Dillenburg's development since the Counts of Nassau had a castle built on the Dillenberg. Dillenburg 1998, pp. 27-33.
  • Rolf Teutsch: Was the choir of the Ev. City Church the Marienkapelle? Surprising discoveries . In: Rolf Teutsch (Ed.): Dillenburg's development since the Counts of Nassau had a castle built on the Dillenberg. Dillenburg 1998, pp. 34-39.
  • Rolf Teutsch: Coats of arms reveal what empty passages in historiography hide . In: Rolf Teutsch (Ed.): Dillenburg's development since the Counts of Nassau had a castle built on the Dillenberg. Dillenburg 1998, pp. 56-58.
  • Heinz Wionski: Architectural monuments in Hessen. Lahn-Dill-Kreis I. Braunschweig 1986, p. 88.

Web links

Commons : Evangelische Stadtkirche (Dillenburg)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse (ed.): Evangelical Parish Church In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hesse
  2. ↑ Teutsch: Was the choir of the Ev. City Church the Marienkapelle? Surprising discoveries. 1998, pp. 34-39; Petri and Teutsch: An attempt to reconstruct the history of the Ev. City Church. 1998, pp. 40-42. The assumptions expressed here: (1) The previous building was purely a mausoleum and (2) had the shape of an octagonal rotunda, are pure speculation, without any actual clues. To (1): There were no such mausoleums in the Middle Ages. Rather, they were always buried as close as possible to the Holy of Holies . Greater security for the souls you promised them healing . (2) An octagonal rotunda as the Marienkapelle in the first half of the 14th century would be a unique building. There is a lack of documentary as well as architectural - archaeological findings .
  3. ↑ a b c Georg Dehio. Handbook of German Art Monuments. Hessen I. 2008, p. 173 f.
  4. ↑ Dillenburg. Historical local dictionary for Hessen. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on May 18, 2019 .
  5. ↑ History of the roof renovation , accessed on May 18, 2019.
  6. ^ Franz Bösken : Sources and research on the organ history of the Middle Rhine (=  contributions to the Middle Rhine music history . Volume 7.1 ). tape 2 : The area of ​​the former administrative district of Wiesbaden. Part 1: A-K . Schott, Mainz 1975, ISBN 3-7957-1307-2 , p. 128-132 .
  7. ↑ See: Teutsch: Die Orgeln. 1998, pp. 27-33.
  8. ↑ Dillenburg Organ Summer , accessed on May 16, 2019.
  9. ^ Nassau-Dillenburg, Heinrich Fürst von. Hessian biography (as of September 6, 2018). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on July 3, 2019 . Lagis
  10. ↑ Teutsch: Coats of arms reveal what empty passages in historiography hide. 1998, pp. 56-58.

Coordinates: 50 ° 44 ′ 20.5 ″  N , 8 ° 17 ′ 8.9 ″  E