Old Reformed Church Elberfeld

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Old Reformed Church 2008

The Old Reformed Church is the oldest church in the Elberfeld district of Wuppertal . Until the Reformation the church was called Laurentiuskirche , since 2002 it has been the CityKirche Elberfeld .

history

Previous buildings

First construction

Construction phase plan according to Hinz 1954

Shortly after Westphalian farmers settled around Fronhof Elberfeld at the beginning of the 10th century, the first previous building, a stone hall church with a square apse, was built. It was consecrated to St. Lawrence .

Tree coffin graves have survived from this time . This church burned down around 1050.

Second and third construction

apse

Several successor buildings followed, each of which suffered considerable damage from fire and required a new building. The Romanesque apse of the third church has been preserved.

Fourth building

In the second half of the 16th century the Reformation found its way into Elberfeld and the name Laurentiuskirche was gradually abandoned. After Elberfeld was granted city rights, the mayor of the church was elected here every year from 1610 . During the great fire of 1687 , the basilica was largely destroyed by flames.

Building as it is today (fifth building)

Kirchstrasse entrance

The building on which it is based today was erected in 1689. The cemetery bordering the church to the south and west was abandoned in 1785 and converted into a public facility. The incumbent pastors of the church included important revival preachers of the 18th and 19th centuries such as Gottfried Daniel , Friedrich Wilhelm and Karl Emil Krummacher or Paul Geyser. The church was destroyed in the air raids on Wuppertal in World War II and rebuilt in the 1950s. In 1953 an upper floor was created for the YMCA by inserting an intermediate ceiling , in 2002 the church space was halved and a café was set up in the front part as a meeting place. Since then, the church has been called CityKirche Elberfeld .

Todays use

Church tower of the Old Reformed Church in the evening sun

In addition to being used for worship, the church is used as an “open meeting place” and for artistic performances. The café (and thus the entire building) in the anteroom has been run under the name "WeltCafé" by the Wuppertal church district since 2018 after several tenants. The Wuppertaler Bühnen regularly produced small theater performances in the church from 2002–2009 :

“In the summer of 2000, the parishes of the Wuppertal church district decided on a new project: a Protestant church in the city, whose doors are open and which offers a space of communication and hospitality, spirituality and culture under one roof. For more transparency in the church in the city, old church walls were broken through and light-filled interiors were designed. In the new church in the city, old and new architecture lead a dynamic dialogue with each other. "

Archaeological excavations

View of the excavation site on the church square of the Elberfeld Citikirche from 2003

In the summer of 1953, Hermann Hinz from the Rheinisches Landesmuseum Bonn carried out the first excavations within the church building on the occasion of the reconstruction. He managed to capture the floor plans of the three previous buildings of today's church.

In spring 2003 the church forecourt was renovated. On this occasion the surroundings of the church building could be examined archaeologically. Findings related to the medieval basilica were revealed. The discovery of a jug from their excavation is an important indication of the date of origin of the Romanesque church in the 13th century. Furthermore, knowledge was gained about the design of the square in the 17th to 19th centuries. The western area around the church was surrounded by an arcuate wall made of limestone blocks. The cemetery, which was closed again in 1785, was laid out behind this wall in the late 17th century. In the current design of the square, the course of the old church courtyard wall is traced by offset paving stones. The base of the Elberfeld Poor Care Memorial, which had previously been lost, was also recovered.

In the summer of 2016, some finds from the excavation by Hermann Hinz were examined again. Including one of the two tree coffins found . By means of a dendrochronological examination, the Wuppertal archaeologist Jörg Scheidt was able to prove that the coffin dates back to 931 ± 10 years. At the time of the burial, both the first church building and a fortified manor house existed.

Individual evidence

  1. Jan-Philipp Koch: Elberfeld is older than previously assumed . In: Westdeutsche Zeitung . January 6, 2017 ( wz.de [accessed January 7, 2017]).
  2. ^ Nadine Wehr: Welt-Café: Gastronomy in the City Church with a new concept. Westdeutsche Zeitung, September 1, 2018, accessed on May 14, 2019 .
  3. ^ Church in the city
  4. Jan-Philipp Koch: Elberfeld is older than previously assumed . In: Westdeutsche Zeitung . January 6, 2017 ( wz.de [accessed January 7, 2017]).

literature

  • Paul Clemen : The art monuments of the Rhine province, 3 vol. II. The art monuments of the cities of Barmen, Elberfeld, Remscheid, Solingen and the districts of Lennep, Mettmann, Düsseldorf. Düsseldorf 1894, p. 21ff.
  • Hermann-Peter Eberlein: Thousand Years of Church in Elberfeld. In: Geschichte im Wuppertal 19 (2010), pp. 16–31.
  • Hermann-Peter Eberlein (Ed.): Album ministrorum of the Reformed Community of Elberfeld. Preachers and pastors since 1552, Bonn 2003. ISBN 3-7749-3225-5 .
  • Sylvia Engels, Hermann-Peter Eberlein (ed.): The thousand-year history of the old reformed church. Prism of the town and church history of Elberfeld, Kamen 2009.
  • Klaus Goebel , Andreas Knorr: Churches and places of worship in Elberfeld, Düsseldorf 1999.
  • Dirk Herdemerten: Archaeological investigations on the Elberfeld church square. In: Jürgen Kunow (Ed.): Archeology in the Rhineland 2003. Cologne / Bonn 2004, p. 137f.
  • Dirk Herdemerten: The archaeological excavations on the church square of the "Old Reformed Church" in Wuppertal Elberfeld 2003. An insight into the history of the City Church. In: Uwe Eckardt et al .: History in Wuppertal. 16th year , Wuppertal 2007, pp. 13–24.
  • Hermann Klugkist Hesse : Church studies of the evangelical church in Elberfeld. Guide to the introduction to the history, nature and order of the community, Wuppertal 1926.
  • Hermann Klugkist Hesse: Elberfeld and its Church in the Middle Ages and in the Thirty Years' War, ed. by Daniela-Nadine Reiher and Hermann-Peter Eberlein, Kamen 2013, ISBN 978-3-89991-147-3 .
  • Hermann Klugkist Hesse: Elberfeld and his church in the century of the Reformation, ed. by Daniela-Nadine Reiher and Hermann-Peter Eberlein, Kamen 2019, ISBN 978-3-89991-209-8 .
  • Hermann Klugkist Hesse: Elberfeld and its reformed community in the 17th century, ed. by Daniela-Nadine Reiher and Hermann-Peter Eberlein, Kamen 2018, ISBN 978-3-89991-204-3 .
  • Hermann Klugkist Hesse / Ernst Hense: The Reformed and Lutheran Congregation Elberfeld, ed. by Daniela-Nadine Reiher and Hermann-Peter Eberlein, Kamen 2014, ISBN 978-3-89991-155-8 .
  • Hermann Hinz : The excavations in the old reformed church Wuppertal-Elberfeld, Wuppertal 1954.
  • Klaus Pfeffer: The church buildings in Wuppertal-Elberfeld. Rhenish art sites. Cologne 1980, pp. 3-7.
  • W. Zimmermann: Art-historical classification of the churches of Elberfeld. In: H. Hinz: The excavations in the old reformed church Wuppertal-Elberfeld, Wuppertal 1954, p. 69ff.

Web links

Commons : Old Reformed Church Elberfeld  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 15 ′ 23.6 "  N , 7 ° 8 ′ 51"  E