Johanneskirche (Maxdorf)

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Coordinates: 49 ° 28 ′ 35.8 ″  N , 8 ° 17 ′ 17.1 ″  E

The Protestant Johanneskirche in Maxdorf from the southwest

The Johanneskirche is a Protestant church in the Maxdorfer (formerly Fußgönheimer ) BASF settlement, which was built between 1952 and 1953. Until 2017, the congregation shared a parish with the parish of the Lukaskirche in neighboring Birkenheide , and since 2018 it has formed a parish with the Christ Church in Maxdorf .

history

Prehistory and edification

The Johanneskirche was built on the initiative of the "settlers", as the residents of the BASF settlement were called. At that time there were already 945 Protestants who belonged to the Fußgönheimer church community. Only provisional divine service regulations were found for the settlement itself, so the pastors of Fußgönheim (1934–1939), Ruchheim (1946–1950), Maxdorf (1951–1952) and Birkenheide (1952–1953, reinforced by the pastor of Fußgönheim) kept in changing intervals and sometimes very irregular services in the settlement, first in the forest, later in the schoolhouse. Finally, the bond with the community of Birkenheide, which had also only existed since 1950, strengthened, with which the Protestant community of the settlement was officially merged on January 1, 1953 (but not completely united!) With that she came to the Vicariate Weisenheim am Sand in the Dean's Office Bad Dürkheim . In 1955 the common pastoral office of the two parishes was created, the parishes themselves, as well as the presbyteries and church assets, but remained separate.

After the services had been held for some time in a room of the settler school, the construction of the Johanneskirche was built in the course of 1953. 1950–1952 is often incorrectly given as the time of origin, but the first groundbreaking did not take place until November 22, 1952. The architect was Clemens Anders from Ludwigshafen. The building was financed entirely by BASF; an exception were the parish hall and the ringing of bells , the costs of which had to be borne by the parish and the Protestant regional church. Hans Stark, who was able to persuade BASF's Chairman of the Board of Management Carl Wurster to provide the necessary financial means , was particularly committed to the construction of the church . The basic construction work - excavation, leveling and shell construction - was done by the settlers themselves (in coordination with the construction companies). Originally the building was intended for both denominations, but in the end it was decided in favor of a purely Protestant church. A Catholic church was to be built in the nearby Knietschstrasse, but was never started, so the property intended for it was sold to several private customers.

Consecration and further development

The topping-out ceremony was celebrated on March 28, 1953. On November 14th of this year the bells were lowered and the next day the church was consecrated . In a pageant, the liturgical implements such as the communion chalices and the altar Bible were brought from the previous church service room in the after-work house of the BASF settlement to the church. Due to the great interest, the subsequent festive service was broadcast in the large hall of the Feierabendhaus. A parsonage did not have to be built as the pastor in charge already had a house belonging to the church in Birkenheide .

In 1964 the Else Bosch Kindergarten was founded, which was founded by Carl Bosch's widow and belongs to the parish. When the BASF settlement was transferred to Maxdorf in 1969, the church itself was given the name "Johanneskirche". It has been a listed building since 1999. In 2004/2005 some renovations took place, but they did not change the overall appearance of the church.

On January 1, 2018, the Birkenheide parish was dissolved and the two subordinate parishes were divided. The Lukas parish of Birkenheide was assigned to the parish of Ellerstadt , and the Johannes parish to the parish of Maxdorf, to which only the parish of the Christ Church had previously belonged.

architecture

The architecture of the Johanneskirche corresponds to the functional style of the time of origin and the determination as a settlement church. The entire building complex is designed like a house and thus blends in well with the residential buildings in the area. It consists of the actual east-facing church building, a community hall connected via a connecting passage and the low (20 meters high) church tower .

The church hall is plastered white on the inside and outside; the interior ceiling is simply coffered and sloping at the sides like a hipped roof . In the east there is the drawn-in and flat-closing choir , in the west the wooden choir gallery with the organ and below the entrance. To the south of the choir is the tower with the sacristy . The area of ​​the church is 320 m 2 , and it has a total capacity of 400 people (350 seats in the nave and 50 on the gallery).

The equipment of the church is uniform and comes from the time it was built. To the right of the main entrance, a high relief made of sandstone is embedded in the outer wall, which shows the symbols of the four evangelists and was created in 1956 by E. Klonk from Marburg. The standing desk made of oak in the choir was made and donated in 1997.

organ

The organ of the Johanneskirche is the remote work of the Steinmeyer concert organ from 1926 from BASF's after-work house in Ludwigshafen , where it was originally located in the building's warehouse. While the main plant there was destroyed by the Second World War, the remote plant whistles were kept by being moved to a safe place in good time and were donated by BASF to the new community in Maxdorf a few years after the war. The Steinmeyer company quickly installed the console and wind mechanism so that the organ could be played at the inauguration of the church. It consisted of eleven registers, four of which were in two manuals and three in the pedals .

The organ was overhauled in 1984/85 by Hugo Wehr from Haßloch , with a twelfth register, a reed register (oboe 8 feet) being added. A tremulant was also added on this occasion.

Bells

The three original bells of the Johanneskirche come from the bell foundry Hermann Hamm in Frankenthal (Palatinate) , were brought to the church in a festive procession on November 14, 1953, installed in the belfry overnight and consecrated together with the church the next day. It was largely financed by collections and donations from the community (DM 4,279). In 1985 a foundation was established through which a fourth, the Peace Bell, which was cast in Karlsruhe, could be purchased.

The characteristic bells of the Johanneskirche thus consist of the following bells:

  1. Death and eternity bells (strike f sharp ', weight 603 kg)
  2. Our Father Bell (strike note a ', weight 433 kg)
  3. Baptism and evening bells (strike h ', weight 310 kg)
  4. Peace and midday bed bell (strike tone dis '', weight 241 kg)

Web links

literature

  • Wilhelm Becker: Maxdorf. Chronicle of a young community. Maxdorf 1987, p. 124 f.
  • Herbert Dellwing , Rolf Mertzenich (arr.): District of Ludwigshafen. (= Monument topography of the Federal Republic of Germany , cultural monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate , vol. 7.) Schwann in Patmos-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-491-31038-5 , p. 254.
  • Volker Müller: The Protestant Johanneskirche church in the BASF settlement. In: Ortsgemeinde Maxdorf (ed.): 50 years of independent local parish Maxdorf 1952–2002. Festschrift. Maxdorf 2002, pp. 47-49.
  • Walter Sattel: 75 years of the BASF settlement in Maxdorf, formerly Fußgönheim. 1934-2009. Maxdorf 2009, pp. 50-55 and pp. 86 f.
  • Wolfgang Kunz: A historical tour around and through Maxdorf. In: Wolfgang Kunz, Henning Cramer, Wolfgang Fluck: Maxdorf. History and nature. Knecht Verlag, Landau 2014, pp. 58–111, here pp. 74 f. (mainly quotations from older works)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Walter Sattel: 75 years of the BASF settlement in Maxdorf, formerly Fußgönheim. 1934-2009. Maxdorf 2009, p. 51.
  2. ^ Wilhelm Becker: Maxdorf. Chronicle of a young community. Maxdorf 1987, p. 125.
  3. ^ History of the Johanneskirche. Website of the Protestant parish Maxdorf II, accessed on March 10, 2019.
  4. ↑ Herbert Dellwing , Rolf Mertzenich (edit.): Cultural monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate , Vol. 7: District Ludwigshafen ( monument topography Federal Republic of Germany ). Schwann in Patmos-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1989, ISBN 3-491-31038-5 , p. 254.
  5. ↑ Standing desk in the church. Website of the Protestant parish Maxdorf II, accessed on March 10, 2019.
  6. ↑ Volker Müller: The Protestant Johanneskirche church in the BASF settlement. In: Ortsgemeinde Maxdorf (ed.): 50 years of independent local parish Maxdorf 1952–2002. Festschrift. Maxdorf 2002, pp. 47-49.
  7. ↑ Walter Sattel: 75 years of the BASF settlement in Maxdorf, formerly Fußgönheim. 1934-2009. Maxdorf 2009, p. 55.