Katharinenkirche Steinau
The Katharinenkirche in Steinau an der Straße was the Protestant parish church of the city until 1965 and has a history that goes back to the high Middle Ages . Since 1981 it has been used for regular church services and as a cultural church. The main church of the Protestant community has been the Reinhard Church in Steinau ever since .
history
Building history
During excavations in 1977 four previous buildings were archaeologically proven. The investigations were very historically oriented, so that obviously other findings were not collected, recorded or published. This means that there are no archaeologically secured dates for the first three church buildings; these are assumptions.
1. Church building: Of this, only the compact block of clay that surrounded the foundation trenches of this building was found. It has not been established whether the church was built of stone, half-timbered or made of wood. At 12 × 7 m, the church was smaller than the following church building. This oldest documented church building is associated with the first mentions of a church in Steinau. This includes a church consecration in 886 . After that this church would be Carolingian . However, whether this message relates to this first documented church building or the subsequent second church building cannot be proven.
2. Church building: The church was built in shell masonry and probably came from the High Middle Ages. It is assumed that it was built around 1100.
3. Church building: This church was also built in shell masonry. It was larger than the previous building, but even smaller than the fourth church building that followed. The location of the choir , which still exists today and which is symmetrically in the center of the floor plan of this third church building, suggests that it was created with this third church building. This church probably belonged to the Romanesque , and it is further suspected: from the time before 1290. The masonry that is preserved today comes mainly from two further, Gothic construction phases:
4. Church building: Of this, the north wall, which has been greatly modified in terms of both height and windows, and the rising masonry of the rectangular choir have been preserved. This church was early Gothic.
5. Church building: In the years 1481–1511 the church was rebuilt in the late Gothic style using parts of the previous building. The south aisle was added and the south wall replaced by a series of octagonal columns . The north wall of the previous building was retained, but raised and provided with new window openings.
Modern times
In 1593, the Reformation of Calvinist style was introduced in the county of Hanau-Münzenberg - to which Steinau belonged - and thus the Church of St. Catherine was reformed.
Members of the Grimm family are buried in the church, members of the pastor Friedrich Grimm (Steinau) (1707–1777), grandfather of the Brothers Grimm . His wife, Christine Elisabeth, née Heilmann (born October 22, 1715, Birstein ; † February 17, 1754), and five of their children are buried here. From the middle of the 18th century, burials were no longer allowed in the nave.
In 1818 the Hanau-Munzenberg County formed the Hanauer Union , the union of the Reformed and Lutheran local congregations that had existed in parallel there until then . The formerly reformed Katharinenkirche was now the parish church for the united uniate congregation, the - formerly Lutheran - Reinhardskirche was only used seasonally and was given up as a liturgical space from 1929 .
In 1965 the function of the parish church was transferred back to the newly restored Reinhardskirche. The Katharinenkirche was to serve cultural purposes in the future and was renovated to this end by 1981.
building
Today the church presents itself as an asymmetrical , two-aisled , flat-roofed hall church . The nave is Early, the south aisle late Gothic with two verschieferten cross gables . The current building is essentially based on a new building in the years 1481–1511, which, however, included older buildings. Traces of the immediate predecessor building, in particular its window niches, were exposed towards the interior and visibly preserved.
To the east the church is closed off by a rectangular choir. The sacristy also dates from 1481. The tower dates from 1273, the slated tower tower with bell-cage and its pointed helmet date from 1539. During restoration work in the 1970s, murals from the 15th and 16th centuries were discovered. They are being put back into the plaster because they are difficult to preserve when open.
Furnishing
In the area of the choir, late medieval wall paintings, some from the first half of the 14th century, were discovered and repainted several times until the 15th century. For conservation reasons, they cannot be permanently exposed but should be preserved. Also noteworthy is a holy grave from the second half of the 15th century with a tumba and body made of sandstone . The pulpit dates from 1500.
The organ prospectus dates from 1682, the organ work (II / 12) was made in 1834 by Georg Link from Reinhards (active between 1834 and 1854).
literature
- Georg Dehio: Handbook of the German art monuments - Hesse II. Administrative region Darmstadt. (Ed .: Folkhard Cremer and Tobias Michael Wolf), 3rd edition, Munich 2008, p. 755f.
- Karl Heinz Doll: The Katharinenkirche zu Steinau an der Straße = Archaeological Monuments in Hesse 62. Ed .: State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse , Wiesbaden 1986.
- Götz J. Pfeiffer: A Bible on the choir walls. To the wall paintings of the 14th century in the Protestant Katharinenkirche in Steinau an der Straße . In: Bulletin of the Center for Regional History , Vol. 39 (2014), pp. 4–9.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ According to other information: Steinau.
- ↑ Fulda newspaper v. September 20, 2010, p. 1. Götz J. Pfeiffer: A Bible on the choir walls. On the wall paintings of the 14th century in the Protestant Katharinenkirche zu Steinau an der Straße, in: Mitteilungsblatt des Zentrum für Regionalgeschichte, Vol. 39 (2014), pp. 4–9.
- ^ Hermann Fischer , Theodor Wohnhaas : Lexicon of southern German organ builders . Noetzel, Wilhelmshaven 1994, ISBN 3-7959-0598-2 , p. 235
Coordinates: 50 ° 18 ′ 44.5 " N , 9 ° 27 ′ 41.3" E