Johanneskirche (Pirmasens)

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Evangelical St. John's Church

View of the Johanneskirche

Basic data
Denomination Protestant
place Pirmasens, Germany
Patronage John Calvin
Building history
construction time 1750-1758
Building description
Furnishing style Choir, terracotta tiles
Construction type Hall construction
Coordinates 49 ° 12 '9.4 "  N , 7 ° 36' 20.3"  E Coordinates: 49 ° 12 '9.4 "  N , 7 ° 36' 20.3"  E
Template: Infobox church building / maintenance / function and title missing

The Johanneskirche is a Protestant church from the 18th century in Pirmasens . The name is reminiscent of the reformer Johannes Calvin .

history

With the expulsion of Reformed Christians from France and Switzerland, their congregation in Pirmasens grew rapidly in the 17th and 18th centuries. For a long time this group did not have its own church. In 1749, Lieutenant Colonel Johann Wilhelm Grandfil (1707–1766) obtained permission to build a church, which the Lutheran regent Landgrave Ludwig IX. of Hessen-Darmstadt (at that time still Hereditary Prince) also issued quickly and unbureaucratically. The foundation stone was laid on March 17, 1750, but the church was not completed until 1758 due to limited funds. After his death, Grandfil was buried in St. John's Church next to his two children, who died at a very early age; the tomb was built into the walled-up south portal (Luisenstrasse) at the end of the 20th century.

From 1793 to 1815 Pirmasens came under French influence as a result of the French Revolution . After the occupation, the church was closed, the three bells sold as raw material, and the practice of religions was forbidden. Not until 1804 did Napoleon allow the freedom to practice his religion again and the church was reopened. After the failure of the revolution of 1848/49 , martial law was imposed on Pirmasens. Since the city had no barracks, the soldiers were quickly billeted in the church. They completely destroyed the interior, the hygienic conditions were catastrophic. That is why in earlier times people used to say in the regional dialect when someone was drafted into the Bavarian army: “He has to go to de Kärcheschisser.” After compensation from the Bavarian military, the church was renovated in 1857 and in 1863 a silent organ was purchased. In addition, a bell from another Pirmasens church was installed.

From 1889 the church was expanded into a town church . The front facade was decorated with two gable portals and the tower was given a baroque dome. A choir and a sacristy were added on the eastern narrow side . The city vicar Heinrich Schreiner inaugurated the enlarged church on April 22, 1891. The community grew continuously until the First World War . In June 1917, the church bells were removed and melted down. Two years after the end of the war, new bells were procured.

In 1931 the church , formerly called the Upper Church , was named Johanneskirche - after the reformer Johannes Calvin . The Johanneskirche survived the Second World War until 1944 without major damage. However, during the bombing of Pirmasens on March 15, 1945, the church burned down. In June 1946 a wooden emergency church was built next to the fire ruins in the church garden. The church builder Raimund Ostermaier began with the reconstruction on December 5th, 1950 and in 1953 the church was inaugurated. For the bicentenary in 1958, a floor was added, the baroque tower dome was reconstructed according to plans by Walter Jung and a ringing with five bells from the Bachert bell foundry was installed. It has the nominal sequence c '- e' - g '- a' - h 'and is musically coordinated with the two neighboring bells in the inner city (prot. Luther church and cath. City church St. Pirmin ). In 1962 the interior of the Johanneskirche was rebuilt: the nave was given a wooden coffered ceiling , the arch to the choir was removed and in 1963 a Steinmeyer organ with 35 registers on three manuals and pedal was placed in the choir behind the altar . 30 years later - in 1993 - the church underwent a thorough renovation.

The church is a listed building.

architecture

The memorial plaque for Johann Wilhelm de Grandfil on the old south portal

The Johanneskirche is located in the center of Pirmasens at the intersection of Schloßstraße and Luisenstraße almost exactly at 400 m above sea level. In front of the church, a small square with a fountain opens up to the street, in the north there is a modern extension that serves as a community center. The church and its forecourt are located on the southeast corner of the parade ground, which is surrounded by postmodern colonnades. In the area today there are mainly 4- to 5-storey new buildings from the immediate post-war period, with the exception of the late classicist town hall on the parade ground and the adjacent Art Nouveau building of the former Bayerische Staatsbank on Luisenstrasse. When it was built in 1912, it was modeled on its predecessor, the former palace of the officer Grandfil, who donated the church.

From the former baroque hall from the 18th century and the extensions at the end of the 19th century, only the outer shape remains, which was extended on the choir side during the reconstruction in 1953. The church building is dominated by the red sandstone tower with a baroque tail hood . It sits in the west facade and was increased during the reconstruction for urban planning reasons, since the houses newly built in the immediate vicinity after the war are significantly higher than their predecessors, which were destroyed in 1944/45. The entrances with the old gable portals are to the left and right of the tower. Inside, the church is relatively unadorned and has been preserved as a single-nave hall church . The high white walls dominate, which are broken by colorless windows, in which portraits made of colored glass with people from the Reformation history as well as biblical scenes are incorporated. Since the last renovation, the eastern end walls of the ship in front of the transition to the choir have had murals with subtle colors. The traditional benches from the reconstruction period were replaced by individual chairs, which allow flexible room seating; only the gallery in the west remained almost unchanged. The wall-filling organ is located in the choir behind the modern sandstone altar. The floor is made of modern terracotta tiles . The ceiling is a modern wooden coffered ceiling.

literature

  • 200 years of Johanneskirche [Pirmasens], commemorative publication for the 200th anniversary, presbytery of the Johanneskirche, 1958

Web links

Commons : Johanneskirche (Pirmasens)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ History of the Johanneskirche. ( Memento of July 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Retrieved September 16, 2011.
  2. a b c d The history of the Johanneskirche ( Memento of the original from July 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / johanneskirche-pirmasens.de
  3. Julius B. Lehnung: Beloved Pirmasens . Pirmasens 1979.
  4. a b General Directorate for Cultural Heritage Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Informational directory of cultural monuments - district-free city of Pirmasens. Mainz 2020, p. 3 (PDF; 6.3 MB).