Lukaskirche (Giessen)

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Front building of the Lukaskirche from the west
Lukas Church from the east

The Lukaskirche is a Protestant church in Gießen ( Central Hesse ). The complex complex consists of two structures, a parish and rectory on the street side with a hipped roof and ridge turrets and behind it a retracted church with a round apse . It was built in 1952/1953 and is a Hessian cultural monument due to its architectural, church-historical and artistic importance .

history

After the city's population grew rapidly in the 19th century, the city ​​church by 1821 had become too small. Because of this, the Johanneskirche was built from 1891 to 1893. The previous Protestant township was divided into four independent parishes on November 1, 1892, which were named after the evangelists and each received a pastor. The St. Matthew and St. Mark congregations were assigned the city church, while the St. Luke and St. John congregations had shared the St. John's church since 1893.

Pastor Kurt Götze, who was vicar of the Lukas parish from 1947 to 1950, applied for the pastor's position advertised on November 1, 1950. After election mode C, however, the church leadership had the right to appoint and wanted to transfer Götze to Nidda and appoint Paul Zipp as the new pastor. Since the Luke parish wanted to keep Pastor Götze, but the church leadership could not approve any exception to the usual practice, a conflict arose. After unsuccessful discussions with the church leadership, protests, letters to the editor in the newspapers and a public discussion with Martin Niemöller on December 1, 1950, the "church dispute" escalated. As a result, in 1951 a Free Luke Congregation split off from the traditional Luke church. The first church services of the new Luke congregation took place in the university hall. The greater part of the old congregation switched to the Free Luke Congregation, which was also joined by members from other congregations and people who had previously been distant from the church. Therefore a second parish office was soon created here. The two parishioners Emma and Clara Buchhold donated their rubble property in Löberstrasse, for which the architect Hermann Dirksmöller designed a building complex with a parish and sexton, a kindergarten, rent office and community rooms. Due to a high volume of donations, the foundation stone was laid on September 6, 1952 and, thanks to the active help of parishioners, the church was consecrated on August 2, 1953 after an eleven month construction period. A small organ was installed in the same year. Then the front building with the rectory was tackled. The topping-out ceremony took place in December 1953. The roof turret received two bells in 1954. The interior work was completed in 1956.

At the same time as the new building in Löberstrasse, the old Lukas parish had to create new premises because the previous parish center in Liebigstrasse had fallen victim to the bombing raid in December 1944. A Protestant kindergarten was opened in the preserved confirmation hall in August 1951, while the Lukassaal, parish hall and rectory were rebuilt from July 1952 to May 1953.

Under Wolfgang Schulze, the second pastor of the free Lukas parish since 1961, the parish again approached the regional church. Talks between the pastors and church councils took place between the two Lukas parishes from 1966 onwards. The Free Lukas Congregation became a personal congregation within the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau in 1970 and its members had been subject to church tax since 1977. In addition to his position in the Free Community, Schulz was elected to succeed Zipp in 1975 in order to promote the unification of the two communities. After the reunification of both St. Luke's congregations on March 1, 1979, the shared use of St. John's Church was retained, so that the St. Luke's congregation has had two church buildings since then. In the course of this, the interior of St. Luke's Church was extensively renovated and redesigned, in which the wooden benches were replaced with chairs, the altar area was redesigned and the triptych by Antonie Bitsch was removed. The community rooms were renovated in 1983.

architecture

Entrance area with segment arches
View from the east of the church and porch

The Lukaskirche consists of two different structures on a plot of land that is surrounded on three sides. The two-storey front building on a rectangular floor plan blends in architecturally inconspicuously into the row of residential buildings on Löberstrasse and is hardly recognizable as a church from the street. Due to the cramped space, an architecturally creative solution was created that was both modern and functional.

In the middle of the hipped roof of the front building is an eight-sided roof turret, which is crowned by a small pointed helmet with a simple cross. The two-storey, eaves-standing building has a base that is clad with panels. The upper floor is illuminated from the street side through seven rows of high rectangular windows, the lower floor through five larger rectangular windows. On the street side, the roof is equipped with five dormers at the height of the five central windows, the gable sides each have a small dormer. A high entrance hall with flat segmental arches provides access .

The actual church space is in the garden and is accessible through the porch. The opposite the rectory confiscated religious building with shallow pitched roof is not faces east , but aligned to the southeast and center attached to the front end. The floor plan resembles an elongated parabola . The long sides are not completely parallel, but converge and are closed in the southeast by a round apse . The interior is lit below the eaves through a surrounding ribbon of windows with colorful lead glass windows that form geometric figures. In the south, a very narrow extension serves as a sacristy and enables access to the altar area through a round-arched outer and inner door. The basement below the church hall has been expanded and originally served as a kindergarten with a covered terrace area below the apse.

Furnishing

altar
View of the interior

The interior of the church ends with a flat ceiling and is simply designed. The altar area, which is covered with ocher-colored tiles, is one step higher than the nave. Little has been preserved of the original furnishings. The wooden gallery gave way to one made of concrete, which serves as the installation site for the organ. The wooden church stalls were replaced by single chairs and the altar area was modernized. The semicircular wooden pulpit with profile strips, the simple lectern and the four-sided baptismal font on a square base with a brass bowl have been preserved. Since the interior renovation, the wooden block altar has stood on a wooden platform raised by two steps.

organ

Organ from 1953

In 1953 the church received an organ from the Lich company Förster & Nicolaus . The five registers are assigned to a manual; the pedal is attached. The disposition is as follows:

I Manual C – f 3
Holzgedackt B / D 8th'
Reed flute B / D 4 ′
Principal B / D 2 ′
Fifth B / D 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
Octave B / D 1'
Pedal C–
attached

Parish

The evangelical Lukasgemeinde and Johannesgemeinde have jointly owned and used the Johanneskirche since its completion in 1893. Both communities bear half of the costs. The Lukaskirche is used for cultural purposes in addition to the regular church services. It houses a Romanian Orthodox community and maintains relationships with the Catholic Church of St. Boniface . The porch offers space for Protestant pastoral care for the disabled and day-care centers .

The Lukas Congregation has about 3000 members (as of 2018). Lukas and Johannes parishes belong to 27 other parishes in and around Gießen to the Evangelical Dean's Office Gießen , which is part of the provost of Upper Hesse within the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau .

The Luke parish had the following pastors:

  • 1893–1898: August Dingeldey
  • 1898–1907: Ferdinand Euler
  • 1908–1938: Heinrich Bechtolsheimer
  • 1939–1947: Erwin Wißmann
  • 1947–1950: Kurt Götze (1951–1970 first pastor of the Free Luke Congregation)
  • 1950–1975: Paul Zipp
  • 1975–1981: Wolfgang Schulze (since 1961 second pastor of the Freie Lukasgemeinde, 1981–1985 deaconry chairman of the dean's office at pastor III)
  • 1981–1987: Peter Fischer-Neumann
  • 1988–2007: Ulrike Fiensch (only pastor's position since 2004)
  • 2008–2016: Andreas Günther (half-time since 2010)
  • 2010–2016: Bettina Friehmelt (half position)
  • since 2016 0 : Matthias Weidenhagen

In 1976 a second parish was set up in the Lukas parish, in 1979 the unified Lukas parish was divided into three districts, each with a parish, and an additional parish vicar was created. The third pastorate was abolished in 1985, the second in 2004.

  • 1976–1979: Gerda Schwarz (parish vicar)
  • 1979–1986: Hugo Schmitt (Pastor II)
  • 1979–1980: Helmut Scholl (Pastor III)
  • 1984–1986: Wolfgang Traumüller (parish vicar)
  • 1986–1989: Manuel Ossa (parish vicar)
  • 1987–1990: Michael Solle (Parish Vicar, Parish Office II)
  • 1991–1997: Friedhelm Schäfer (Pastor II)
  • 1997–2004: Bert Schaaf (Pastor II)

literature

  • State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.), Karlheinz Lang (edit.): Cultural monuments in Hesse. University town of Giessen. (= Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany ). Verlagsgesellschaft Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig / Wiesbaden 1993, ISBN 3-528-06246-0 , p. 202.
  • Evangelische Johannesgemeinde, Evangelische Lukasgemeinde (Ed.): 1893–1993. 100 years of St. John's Church. Festschrift for the 100th anniversary of the Johanneskirche in Giessen. Giessen 1993, DNB 961452331 .
  • Peter Weyrauch : The churches of the old district of Giessen. Mittelhessische Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Gießen 1979, DNB 800512863 , p. 62 f.

Web links

Commons : Evangelische Lukaskirche (Gießen)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse (ed.): Evangelische Lukaskirche In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hesse , accessed on October 18, 2015.
  2. ↑ giessen-evangelisch.de: Lukasgemeinde , accessed on October 18, 2015.
  3. ^ Heinrich Bitsch: The Protestants of Giessen. A representation of the events in the Giessen church dispute. Albin Klein, Giessen 1951.
  4. ^ Weyrauch: The churches of the old district Gießen. 1979, p. 62.
  5. ↑ Ulrike Fiensch, Ursula Koch: Die Lukasgemeinde. In: Evangelische Johannesgemeinde, Evangelische Lukasgemeinde (Ed.): 1893–1993. 100 years of St. John's Church. 1993, pp. 79-103, here: p. 92.
  6. ↑ Ulrike Fiensch, Ursula Koch: Die Lukasgemeinde. In: Evangelische Johannesgemeinde, Evangelische Lukasgemeinde (Ed.): 1893–1993. 100 years of St. John's Church. 1993, pp. 79-103, here: p. 97.
  7. ↑ Ulrike Fiensch, Ursula Koch: Die Lukasgemeinde. In: Evangelische Johannesgemeinde, Evangelische Lukasgemeinde (Ed.): 1893–1993. 100 years of St. John's Church. 1993, pp. 79-103, here: p. 98.
  8. ^ A b c d State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.): Cultural monuments in Hesse. University town of Giessen. 1993, p. 202.
  9. ^ Franz Bösken , Hermann Fischer : Sources and research on the organ history of the Middle Rhine. Vol. 3: Former province of Upper Hesse (=  contributions to the Middle Rhine music history 29.1 . Part 1 (A – L)). Schott, Mainz 1988, ISBN 3-7957-1330-7 , p. 371 .
  10. ↑ a b The Evangelical Dean's Office Gießen , accessed on October 18, 2015.
  11. ↑ Ulrike Fiensch, Ursula Koch: Die Lukasgemeinde. In: Evangelische Johannesgemeinde, Evangelische Lukasgemeinde (Ed.): 1893–1993. 100 years of St. John's Church. 1993, pp. 79-103, here: p. 100.

Coordinates: 50 ° 34 ′ 57.2 "  N , 8 ° 40 ′ 42.5"  E