Friedenskirche (Eupen)
The Friedenskirche in Eupen , Province of Liège , Belgium , is a church building of the Protestant parish Eupen- Neu-Moresnet in the network of the United Protestant Church of Belgium . It was built in neo-Gothic style between 1851 and 1854 according to plans by the Aachen Royal Government Building Councilor Theodor August Stein and inaugurated on December 5, 1855. The Friedenskirche, its pulpit as well as the enclosure wall and 22 historical tombstones were placed under monument protection in 1987 . In addition, in 1996 the pneumatic organ made in 1907 from the workshop of the organ builder Eberhard Friedrich Walcker was also placed under protection as the first of its kind in Belgium.
history
The history of the Protestant parish and its church is closely linked to the eventful history of the city of Eupen and the freedom of belief that depends on the respective sovereign. In the middle of the 16th century, several families in Eupen, still in isolated cases, confessed to the teachings of the Calvinist reformer Franciscus Junius . However, at the time when Eupen and its surroundings were ruled by the Spanish Netherlands , they were suppressed in the practice of their religion and in some cases were banned from the Empire . They then held their regular Sunday mass celebrations, as well as baptism and wedding services in the Waalse Kerk in Vaals , which was inaugurated in 1660 , to which they made a pilgrimage of around four hours on the so-called " Geusenweg ".
After the area fell temporarily to the United Netherlands at the beginning of the 18th century as part of the War of the Spanish Succession , evangelical believers were now able to profess their religion under certain conditions. In 1707 they were allowed to build a place of prayer and assembly in Eupener Hookstraße, which outwardly had the character of a representative town house, but inside was set up as a church with a prayer room and as a parish and teacher's apartment.
Just a few years later, when the Austrian Netherlands took control of the territories from 1714 , the evangelical believers had to move underground again. It was not until the Edict of Tolerance by Emperor Joseph II in 1781 that the Protestants were initially tolerated and were finally given full equality during the time of the French occupation of Eupens from 1797 to 1815, which was supported from 1815 by the now predominantly Protestant Prussian government. Since 27 November 1831, the municipality of Eupen was the Uniate Church the church district of Aachen connected, their commitment, however, is rather the Reformed Church associate.
However, it was not until the middle of the 19th century that Protestants could afford to build their own church with the support of Mayor Peter Becker and through fundraising. In 1851 the foundation stone was laid for the new church, which was consecrated as the Peace Church on December 5, 1855 after four years of construction. After the Prussian district of Eupen was annexed to the Belgian state as part of the Versailles Treaty at the end of the First World War , the Protestant Christians of East Belgium now joined the Union des Eglises Evangeliques Protestantes de Belgique , based in Brussels , which in 1978 became the “United Protestant Church of Belgium ”.
The old Protestant parsonage , built in 1707 , which had survived the turmoil of the time and remained in the possession of Protestant citizens, served as a Protestant school for many decades and now functions as a community hall for numerous activities as well as a replacement room for church services on a smaller scale . In 2005 it was also added to the list of listed buildings in Eupen.
Building description
The Church of Peace, built using the quarry stone construction method, consists of a three-aisled choir with a five-sided and attached lower apse on the east side and a three-story tower in front of it on a square base on its west side. The corners of the choir are emphasized by pillars made of bluestone with attached pinnacles , which merge into a pinnacle gable adapted to the course of the gable roof on the west and east side of the building . The front pinnacle gable on the west side is provided on both sides of the tower by five narrow pointed arch niches with a small tracery opening in the top. Two additional supporting pillars, also made of bluestone, that protrude up to the roof ledge, give the building the necessary support on the side walls of the choir.
The light inside the church is provided by six pairs of two between the supporting pillars on each side of the choir, as well as three pointed arched windows in the apse. These are windows designed in grisaille , which are surrounded by tracery in red in the apse. The apse windows are still the original products from the time the church was built, whereas the nave windows were made later.
The area around the church building is expansive surrounded by an old stone wall, within this a little old cemetery is built, are preserved in the still 22 old grave plates at Eupen deacons from the 17th and 18th centuries, with their coats of arms and house brands remember .
tower
The high, three-storey, stepped bell tower made of quarry stone is stabilized at the front at the corners by supporting pillars made of blue stone blocks, which protrude in a slender shape with their pinnacles over the upper cornice of the first floor and are connected to it with small buttresses . The basement is made entirely of bluestone in the entrance area and is filled by a pointed arch portal raised with four bluestone steps. In this is a double wing door with pointed arch ornaments and a pointed arch skylight with double tracery, which is provided with inserted stained glass. In the overlying rectangular wall surface between the structurally accentuated portal lintel and the all-round cornice with small tracery to the first floor, the writing: "HONOR TO GOD IN THE HEIGHT - PEACE ON EARTH AND PEOPLE A WELL-PLEASED" is engraved.
The first floor, which is slightly recessed in terms of area, houses the organ gallery in the lower area, the light of which is provided by a small pointed arch window on the three free outer sides. The upper half of this storey, which on the choir side only protrudes slightly over the roof ridge , is used for the lower bell stalls . For this purpose, two small pointed arch openings with lamellas as sound openings are set in pairs in the free outer walls, above which the church tower clocks are installed.
The first floor ends with a further all-round cornice, over which the slightly reduced area is built for the bell suspension, which is provided with its own bluestone support pillars with attached pinnacles at its four corners. All four side surfaces are each equipped with a large pointed arch window with integrated tracery, which are also equipped with lamellas for sound transmission for the three bells. These are named “Faith”, “Love” and “Hope” and were cast in 1939 by the Bochum association . They replaced the old bells that were confiscated during the war in 1917 and made in Joseph Beduwe's workshop .
The second floor ends with a flat roof, which is surrounded by a stone parapet with neo-Gothic ornamentation between the supporting pillars. In the middle, the iron octagonal pierced spire was placed, the frame of which is made of wrought iron, which is covered with beaten, untreated zinc sheet and equipped with crabs .
Furnishing
According to the Calvinist-Puritan view, the three-aisled hall church is kept simple and all in white and simply furnished. Only the walls of the choir are decorated in the lower area with a narrow stucco molding all around. The church is divided into three bays per nave , the ribbed vaults of which are decorated with colorful plant ornaments. The vault ribs , made of bluestone and painted blue, open into four monolithic octagonal pillars in the middle of the choir and into wall brackets on the side walls . The pillars are provided with capitals , which, like the wall brackets, are decorated with tracery-like niches and blue-yellow coloring.
A plastered and painted white wall separates the wider choir from the narrower and lower five-sided apse, which can be passed through in the middle via a large pointed arch opening that is the width of the apse. Six ribs run from the central keystone in the ribbed vault there, which lead into brackets fitted with tracery. Ribs, vaulted fields and consoles correspond in their design to those in the choir. The keystone is also the suspension for the octagonal neo-Gothic chandelier made of oak wood, which is equipped with eight lampshades from more recent times.
The center of the apse is the rectangular altar table made of oak, which is provided with profiled tracery on all sides. Behind the altar, a simple wooden cross is attached to the apse wall under the central window. To the left of the altar is the place for the baptismal font, which was donated to the parish for the 100th anniversary. It is about 1 meter high and made entirely of bluestone. It is divided into a square base, an octagonal column and an octagonal basin with the year 1855/1955 engraved on the outside. In the basin there is a blue ceramic bowl with the inscription in gold letters: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. Marc 16.16 “is engraved.
On the left choir wall in front of the apse is the neo-Gothic artfully carved wooden pulpit , over which an equally valuable sound cover is mounted. This is crowned with five wooden brackets that lead into a decorated finial . On both sides of the central aisle, 12 oak benches are set up in the choir, each of which is equipped with tracery and openwork quatrefoils on the outside . In the middle of the choir, two further octagonal chandeliers in the style of the apse chandelier provide the necessary lighting. The floor of the choir is laid out with alternating dark and light stone slabs in a checkerboard pattern.
organ
For the opening of the Friedenskirche, a single manual organ with 15 stops was purchased from the organ workshop Franz Wilhelm Sonreck in Cologne . Among other things, the sale of the old organ from the prayer room in the rectory on Hookstrasse served as financing. Already at the turn of the 20th century, the Sonreck organ no longer met the increased modern requirements, despite a restoration in the Stumm organ workshop in Kirn, and the parish had a new organ made by the Walcker company in Ludwigsburg . This was built under the opus number 1371 as a two-manual and purely pneumatic organ and after a short stop at the Stuttgart Music Festival in 1907 it was finally installed in the Friedenskirche.
In the 1960s, the first extensive renovation was necessary, which was carried out by Eupen organ builder Ernst Kühn. He took the late romantic sound of the instrument through various technical interventions and tried to redesign it in the neo-baroque style, for example by lightening the sound by cutting off the existing organ pipes or by moving the pipes by several semitones. A few years later problems arose with the pneumatics and finally the free-standing gaming table was removed for a television broadcast and later disposed of.
It was only after the organ was included in the list of monuments in 1996 that it was possible to have the organ undertaken a comprehensive restoration and renovation. This was carried out in the Schumacher Orgelbau workshop in Baelen in collaboration with the Jan Drozdowicz organ builder from Poznan . The organ was largely returned to its original state and provided with original Walcker spare parts of Polish origin and equipped with a new console based on the model of the organ in the Sacred Heart Church in Posen-Jeżyce from 1900. In addition, the pneumatics had to be completely expanded and modernized and new wind generators had to be installed in a soundproof box in the area of the tower chamber with an intake duct to the church room. Finally, the intonation was adapted to the late romantic customs and in 2005 the entire renovation was completed.
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P, sub-octave coupling II / I, super-octave coupling I / I
literature
- Jean-Jacques Bolly, Norbert Kreusch: Photographic Directory of Sacred Art in Belgium. Royal Institute for Art Heritage, Eupen 1981, pp. 29–30. ( Digitized version )
- Alfred Minke: The archive of the Evangelical Church Community Eupen-Neu Moresnet (1621-2000). State Archives Belgium. ( Digitized version )
- Franz-Josef Vogt: The Walcker organ of the Evangelical Peace Church in Eupen. In: Ars Organi , 55th year, Heft 3, 2008, pp. 185-189. ( Digitized version )
- Alfred Minke :: 1707–2007 Festschrift on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the Eupen rectory. The Evangelical Church Community Eupen - Neu-Moresnet. a historical review. Eupen 2007.
Web links
- Homepage of the Evangelical Church of Epen-Moresnet
- Portrait and detailed descriptions on ostbelgienkulturerbe.be
- Leo Kever: 150 years Eupen Church of Peace. In: Grenz-Echo from September 30, 2005.
- Portrait of the organ on the homepage of Orgelbau Schumacher
- Portrait of the organ on ostbelgienkulturerbe.be
Individual evidence
- ↑ Klaus Schlupp: Conservative and Open: Evangelical Christians in Belgium , on evangelisch.de of December 22, 2011.
- ↑ Evangelical rectory in Eupen on ostbelgienkulturerbe.be
Coordinates: 50 ° 37 '51.2 " N , 6 ° 2' 4.2" E