Huguenot Church (Erlangen)
The Evangelical Reformed Church in Erlangen is called the Huguenot Church . It was built between 1686 and 1693 according to plans by Johann Moritz Richter . The construction took place in the course of the design of the Erlanger Neustadt , a baroque planned town . The tower dates from 1732 to 1736.
The Erlangen church is the oldest Huguenot church outside France that is still in use . In addition, the Evangelical Reformed Church is probably the most important church building in Erlangen, the oldest building in Erlanger Neustadt and the second oldest church in Erlangen after the Martinsbühler Kirche , since the Neustädter Church was only founded in 1703 and the Old Town Marienkirche was destroyed in the great fire in 1706 and not until 1721 Trinity Church was rebuilt. She was called to distinguish it from the German Reformed Church until the unification of the two churches in 1920 French Reformed Church .
Location and surroundings
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Row of houses at the back: Community center at Bahnhofplatz 2 (left) and rectory at Bahnhofplatz 3 (right)
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The Evangelical Reformed Church is located in Erlangen's Neustadt, just a few steps from the train station , on Hugenottenplatz . This forms the smaller of the two original squares in the new town. With its rectangular floor plan , the church fits in well with the grid system of the planned city.
In addition to the church, the property of the Evangelical Reformed parish also includes a lush inner courtyard west of the church, which is closed off by a wall of sandstone blocks north to Richard-Wagner-Strasse and south to Calvinstrasse . The conclusion of the station square towards forming a row of houses (Station No. 2 and Station No. 3), the north community halls and south of the parsonage houses. The two baroque hipped roof corner buildings were built in 1723 and one storey added in 1750. The latter is expressed, among other things, in the fact that the ground floor has outer walls made of sandstone blocks, while the upper floors are plastered . In the attic there are three small dormers with a hipped roof as well as a dwelling in the portal axis.
history
prehistory
After the Calvinist Protestants (also known as Huguenots ) had been assured to practice their religion by King Henry IV in the Edict of Nantes in 1598, King Louis XIV issued the Edict of Fontainebleau on October 18, 1685 . He expelled Calvinist clergy from the country and at the same time prohibited the practice of the Protestant faith. In the same year around 500,000 Huguenots left France as religious refugees. Their routes led them primarily to the states bordering on France to the east, especially to Switzerland and the Mark Brandenburg , where Elector Friedrich Wilhelm made it possible for them to settle. On the way there, many of them crossed the Principality of Bayreuth , where Margrave Christian Ernst , a relative of the Elector, ruled at the time. He also made the settlement of Huguenots possible by an edict in November 1685.
Foundation of Erlanger Neustadt and construction of the Huguenot Church
For example, around 1500 Huguenots came to the small town of Erlangen, a medieval town with around 300 to 500 inhabitants, almost overnight. Initially, these were provisionally quartered in the existing houses and in neighboring farmsteads - much to the displeasure of the long-established population. Because of this, and because the Huguenots wanted to be kept in the country because of their financial strength and their economic abilities, a new city was built for the Huguenots from 1686 south of the old town of Erlangen, the Erlanger Neustadt . The Huguenots were assured in a contract that a new city would be founded and a church would be built. The planning of this city was the responsibility of the margravial chief architect Johann Moritz Richter , who laid it out as a planned baroque city. In honor of the regent, its official name was Christian-Erlang until the beginning of the 19th century .
Just two months after the arrival of the first refugees, the foundation stone for the new church was laid on July 14, 1686 . Margrave Christian Ernst took over the financing and made soldiers available for the construction work. This should show the newcomers that he was serious about their settlement and that he wanted to offer them a new home in the long term. The building of the church was part of the urban planning of Erlanger Neustadt from the beginning. However, since there was great uncertainty about the number of new residents to be expected, the construction plan was changed several times during the work. On February 26, 1693, the church was inaugurated , but finally in a more generous version .
Another story
The construction of the tower, which corresponds to those of the Old Town and New Town Church, did not begin until 39 years later. This time the community took over the financing itself. Among other things, the funds of a collection patent from the margrave to support the community development and by poorer community members with its approval were misappropriated . This allowed the collection of donations outside the parish and outside the margraviate. After four years, the tower was completed in 1736. Since the tower of the Neustadt Church was not completed until the 19th century for financial reasons, and the tower of the German Reformed Church never reached the planned height, the tower of the Huguenot Church was for a long time the only real church tower in Erlangen Neustadt.
The organ, which still exists today, was built between 1755 and 1764. It was given its place above the main portal in the former margravial box , which was then moved to the south side.
After the bilingual administration of the Huguenot city had been given up in 1740, services in the French Reformed Church were held in French until 1822. Since then there have only been services in German.
architecture
Exterior construction
The church building, a so-called hall church in the form of a transverse church , has a simple, rectangular floor plan without a choir . It is unusual that the transverse axis (north-south direction) is longer than the "longitudinal axis" (east-west direction). Rectangular windows with drilled frames, friezes and cornices as well as round windows above allow plenty of light into the interior of the church. In the middle of the north, west and south façades, instead of the usual window arrangement, there is only a large, highly oval window. The mighty hipped roof , once removed, towered over all other buildings in the city when it was built. The westward orientation of the presbytery is unusual, owed to the primacy of the urban planning requirements within the planned city, but was also deliberately arranged in such a way that it was clear that no eastward-facing altar was wanted, as described under the transverse church. There are entrances to the church from all sides, the main portal is on the east side on the tower ground floor.
Above it are two stone tablets with Latin inscriptions . The left panel commemorates the completion of the church in 1692. The inscription reads:
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TEMPLVM |
The church, |
The right one is dedicated to the construction and completion of the tower in 1736. When reproducing the inscription, the letters that have been lost during a restoration are shown in brackets:
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TURRIS.VERO. |
The tower, however |
tower
In the middle of the east side there is a tower in front of it, which - like the towers of the other two inner-city churches - has four floors. As the tower faces the square, the main portal is located on the ground floor . This ends with a round arch at the top , is flanked by two Ionic columns and spanned by a segment-arched gable . Above - below a round window - the two stone tablets described above can be seen. By means of a cornice that ends with the upper end of the surrounding walls, the tower merges into the second floor. Like the ground floor, this has rounded corners. All-round arched windows, each crowned by a triangular gable, are accompanied by Ionic pilasters that support a slightly profiled entablature below the next cornice.
The latter conveys the transition to the third floor, the one on each side via a sound arcade and a clock in the French national colors of blue, white and red . The grooved corners of the third floor accommodate Corinthian columns, which in turn support a slightly profiled entablature. Since the fourth floor is significantly tapered compared to the substructure, there is a circumferential gallery at the transition, which is surrounded by an artistically decorated, wrought-iron railing . The octagonal superstructure houses a two-story tower house. A so-called Welschen hood rises above it . The upper end is formed by the weather vane placed on the tower knob , which depicts a golden dove with an olive branch in its beak. The tower has a height of around 52 meters and is therefore slightly lower than the towers of the two other inner-city churches.
inner space
The interior of the Huguenot Church, a rectangular hall, is characterized by twelve wooden , angled corner pillars, which can be seen as symbols for the twelve apostles . These carry the simple hollow vault, never stuccoed for cost reasons, and a row of arcades , which has a circumferential gallery halfway up, only interrupted at the pulpit . This is very generous in size and is delimited by a balustrade . The pulpit, which has the shape of a communion chalice , is central to underline the great importance of the sermon in Reformed worship. In front of the pulpit are the communion table and a baptismal font . The benches of the community, arranged within the dodecagon formed by the row of arcades, face the pulpit from three sides. The organ is located on the gallery opposite the pulpit, i.e. directly above the main portal. In accordance with the Calvinist tradition, which is strictly committed to the ban on images from the Old Testament , the interior has a simple design.
Furnishing
organ
The organ of the Huguenot Church was built between 1755 and 1764 by the organ builder Johann Nikolaus Ritter from Hof , a student of the famous Gottfried Silbermann , together with his journeyman Friedrich Heidenreich . It has largely been preserved in its original condition and, according to Franz Krautwurst, can therefore be described as the "most important monument organ in Middle Franconia". In addition, the mechanism is the only one from Johann Nikolaus Ritter that has been preserved to this day. The organ, which cost around 2700 guilders , was financed by the community, which received substantial support (with 2000 guilders) from the merchant Abraham Merchand. The instrument was last restored by Johannes Rohlf in 1986 .
The organ's three-part prospectus dates from the time it was built and is accordingly designed in the Baroque style. There is a coat of arms in a cartridge above each of the three “turrets” . The purely mechanical grinding loading -instrument has a manual work , which by means of a valve coupling with the pedal mechanism is connected. It has a total of 15 registers . Sonically are mainly the Silbermann "thundering bass" of the pedal striking. The disposition is as follows:
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Bells
The Huguenot Church has a three-part bell with the tone sequence f sharp 1 –h 1 –c sharp 2 .
The lowest bell (strike note F sharp 1 ), which is used for the quarter-hour strike, was cast by Johann Balthasar Herold in Nuremberg in 1702 . Before the completion of the tower, this bell hung over the entrance door of the Huguenot church. The twelve o'clock bell with the strike note h 1 is the largest bell in the Huguenot Church. It was cast in 1734 by Johann Adam Roth from Würzburg and raised into the newly built tower. The French inscription translates as follows: Abraham Marchand had this bell cast at his own expense for the service and in honor of the French colony in Christian Erlang. Its sound goes through all countries and to the end of the world. This tinkling ore is one of the fortunate gifts to be had at the price of mercy . These two bells were withdrawn to be melted down during World War II . In 1947, however, it was identified by the Committee for the Return of Bells at the Hamburg Bell Cemetery and returned to Erlangen.
The smallest bell weighing around 260 kilograms (strike tone c sharp 2 ) was made in 1938 by Franz Schilling Söhne from Apolda . It was donated by the married couple Arthur and Ella Schneider and is intended to improve the unclean ringing of the two larger bells. Their inscription reads simply: Glory to God on high.
Bell 1 (f sharp 1 )
Bell 2 (h 1 )
Bell 3 (cis 2 )
literature
- Doo Won Cho, Marta Klajn-Prassol, Claudia Lämmlin, Bettina Trösch: The Huguenot Church in Erlangen. Building survey and building research . In: Erlanger modules for Franconian local research 54/2012, pp. 9–161.
- Christoph Friedrich, Bertold Freiherr von Haller, Andreas Jakob (Hrsg.): Erlanger Stadtlexikon . W. Tümmels Verlag, Nuremberg 2002, ISBN 3-921590-89-2 ( complete edition online ).
- Andreas Jakob: The Huguenot Church in Erlangen. “The most haunting building of Reformed tradition in Bavaria” (Publications of the Erlangen City Archives, No. 12). Wendelstein 2013, pp. 11–261.
- Friedrich Schmidt: The development of the new town Erlangen and the construction of the margravial castle . Erlangen 1912.
- Oliver V. Thomas, Björn Reimer: The Huguenot Church in Erlangen , the tower of the Huguenot Church in Erlangen and the organ of the Huguenot Church in Erlangen . Published by the Evangelical Reformed Church Community Erlangen.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Evangelical Reformed Church Community Erlangen: History of the Church Community . Online at hugenottenkirche.de ; accessed on April 19, 2018.
- ↑ Evangelical Reformed Church Community Erlangen: 1732-1736 - erection of the tower . Online at hugenottenkirche.de ; accessed on April 19, 2018.
- ↑ a b c Evangelical Reformed Church Community Erlangen: The organ . Online at hugenottenkirche.de ; accessed on April 19, 2018.
- ↑ Evangelical Reformed Church Community Erlangen: 1740 - Abolition of bilingualism . Online at hugenottenkirche.de ; accessed on April 19, 2018.
- ^ A b Andreas Jakob, Volkmar Greiselmayer: Huguenot Church. In: Erlanger Stadtlexikon.
- ↑ a b Evangelical Reformed Church Community Erlangen: The entrance . Online at hugenottenkirche.de ; accessed on April 19, 2018.
- ↑ a b Evangelical Reformed Church Community Erlangen: The Tower . Online at hugenottenkirche.de ; accessed on April 19, 2018.
- ↑ Evangelical Reformed Church Community Erlangen: Our Church . Online at hugenottenkirche.de ; accessed on April 19, 2018.
- ^ Walter Opp: Organs. In: Erlanger Stadtlexikon.
- ↑ Erlangen, Germany (Bavaria) - Huguenot Church . Online at orgbase.nl ; accessed on April 19, 2018.
- ↑ Erlangen (ER), city center: Reformed Huguenot Church - bells . Online at www.youtube.com ; accessed on April 19, 2018.
Coordinates: 49 ° 35 ′ 46.6 ″ N , 11 ° 0 ′ 12.8 ″ E