Evangelical Church Ueberau
The Evangelical Church Ueberau is a Gothic church in Ueberau , a district of Reinheim in the Darmstadt-Dieburg district , in the front Odenwald .
history
Emergence
A church in Ueberau is mentioned for the first time on November 23, 1316 in a document ("Hof im Dorfe Ueberau, where the church is located") and is therefore one of the oldest churches in the region. In the deed, Werner, Herr von Lißberg sells this farm, which was lent to Werner von Reinheim, and real estate to Ritter Hartmann von Düdelsheim . The courtyard and church were probably closely related, as another document from 1399 reported on the “courtyard on which the church stands”. The courtyard itself probably stood at the place where the primary school and the former town hall of Ueberau are today, the church on a bump behind it and was surrounded by a retaining wall, the remains of which can still be seen today on the west side.
Churches that belonged directly to an aristocratic court were mainly in France , so the owner could decide on the finances and spiritual care. This practice was carried out until the investiture controversy from 1076 to 1122, but remained in remnants as a patronage right in the Odenwald.
The monastery
It is, however, very improbable that the Lords von Lißberg had such an own church . The size and shape suggest that the church had a special use and served more as a priestly church, probably as a monastic priory .
It is possible that Ueberau and Wersau were owned by a monastery, so Ueberau means “Obere Aue” and Wersau “Lower Aue”. The associated monastery would then have had to stand somewhere between the two places. The most probable area seems to be the “Klostergrund” district south of Reinheim, which would also be supported by finds from the soil that were made while plowing the fields there, such as hewn stones and wall remains as well as various shards. The parish of Reinheim is said to have taken over possessions of a monastery. How this monastery came about, which order it belonged to and why it was dissolved is unknown. It is also unknown how the Lords of Lißberg came into possession of the monastery court; they could have been bailiffs of the monastery. In 1396 the von Lißberg family died out, who meanwhile owned the church again, and their property came to the Lords of Rodenstein , who soon sold Ueberau to the Upper County of Katzenelnbogen .
reformation
In 1527, Landgrave Philipp the Magnanimous introduced the Reformation in the Upper County of Katzenelnbogen . For Ueberau this meant that the previous monastery church was now a sermon church . The rood screen was removed and a pulpit installed.
Own parish
The mother church of Ueberau has always been the church in Reinheim, as was that of Illbach and, until 1563, of Wersau . On March 19, 1716, the Ueberauer made the first attempt to get their own pastorate. Christoph Libinick erroneously referred to the Ueberau church as a parish church on June 3, 1523, from which the Ueberau people deduced that their church had previously been the mother church:
"From ancient times our church was a mother church and therefore previously 3 altars in the same and had its own pastor ..."
In the statement of the Reinheimer pastor Georg Sann, he describes the statements as "fundamentally wrong and pure untruths" and opposes the fact that the church in Ueberau is called "our church", since it is not the church of the Ueberauer, but all parishioners of the community Reinheim is:
“Reinheim has 3 churches, the first in the city and the curtain wall, for proper church service; the second to Überau, to the Überau funerals and other sermons according to the agreed opportunity; the third on St. Nicolsberg, in addition to the city, in the churchyard, assigned to the Reinheim funeral sermons. "
He also says that the church is called a mother church for no reason, because Wersau was not a branch of Ueberau as claimed, the so-called Wersau gate, which sits in the churchyard wall, was not there for everyday church attendance, but only for pilgrimages. Also, there should never have been three, but only two altars, as in the Nicolaikirche.
Thereupon the request of the Ueberauer was rejected. In 1718, however, a chaplain was hired to run a school and hold a service every two weeks.
In January 1741, the citizens made another attempt to become independent and, in addition to weekly worship, demanded that all official acts can take place in their church. The new pastor of Reinheim Johann Justus Lanz reacted similarly to Sann, but added that Ueberau was just a monastery chapel that "Lutheri confessed".
The third attempt followed in January 1743, but Pastor Christian Heinrich Zwickenwolf also agreed with his predecessors and further justified that Ueberau was not a parish, but only a suburb with "incorporated people". In addition, the church of Reinheim is big enough to offer space for all parishioners and the flood of the Gersprenz , which is supposed to keep Ueberauer from going to church, does not exist and is therefore not a hindrance.
It was not until 1819 that Ueberau was able to break away from Reinheim. The first pastor was Johann Phillip Neumann. In 1866 a parsonage was built, in which 37 officers and 1900 troops who fought on the Austrian side in the German War had to be taken care of by the inauguration on July 15 . Shortly afterwards, the pastor of Reinheim Ueberau had to take over twelve years to finance the renovation of the church.
Building history
Late Romanesque construction phase around 1200
Restoration work on the church in 1939 and 1965/66 enabled the old foundation walls to be exposed and the original floor plan to be reconstructed.
The church had a transverse nave , which was 13.5 m wide and 7.5 m long. To the east, there was a choir vestibule measuring 4.5 m by 13.5 m and a square choir with 4.5 m long side walls. The nave and choir vestibule were separated from each other by three round arches on two freestanding columns and two 2.3 m high, 1 m wide columns set into the walls. The choir itself was probably provided with a groin vault .
From this construction phase only the choir, the pillars and two sacrament houses as well as the Wersau door are preserved.
Early Gothic construction phase around 1260
A new vault was built in the choir with beveled ribs that terminate at right angles on brackets with ballwork and masks. The central belt arch is supported by services , the capitals and bases of which are decorated with ivy.
In the northern yoke of the choir vestibule, a platform for an altar was created. The tracery window above is in three parts, the remaining windows of the church only in two parts. The tracery consists of circles with three passes arranged over pointed arches. The southern yoke may have been used as a sacristy . The separation of the choir vestibule and nave was reinforced by two steps and a wooden rood screen. In the western wall a pointed arched door, the walls of which are decorated with a pear stick between two round bars, was built.
Late Gothic construction phase around 1470
Around 1470 the previous nave was demolished and rebuilt 4 meters narrower, but 3 meters longer. The early Gothic pointed arch door was relocated. Two new windows were also installed in the north and south walls, between which pointed arch doors were also installed.
The southern yoke of the choir vestibule was also torn down and the remaining arches walled up. Above the northern yoke, a previous tower or roof turret was raised or renewed and provided with strong buttresses. The west wall of the choir was removed and replaced by an apse with a 3/8 end with two-part windows. The vault of the choir was extended into the apse.
Baroque remodeling
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In 1721 the west gable of the nave was hipped off . Inside, a gallery was built on the west and north walls, which are illuminated through two oval windows in the west wall. A gallery for the organ was also built into the choir .
Further modifications
The Thirty Years War, withstood the Church, by some repairs and the loss of a bell apart, relatively unscathed
It was not until 1882 that the church had to be closed and completely renovated due to its dilapidation. After sponge and worm infestation, the roof was replaced and the inner ceiling increased. The spire , which had tilted up to 50 cm, was removed and the tower was raised by 2.5 m. The spire was then rebuilt in a similar construction as before. To finance the work, the place had to do without its own pastor for twelve years.
During a renovation in 1939, the organ gallery was removed and the organ moved to the west gallery. In the basement of the tower, on the northern yoke, the bell ringer room and the sacristy described as a “cage-like parish chair” were removed and a baptistery was set up. In addition, the early Gothic tabernacles were uncovered.
Only in 1965/66 a new sacristy was built on the site of the demolished southern yoke during a further renovation. Gothic frescoes were also found in the choir vault. In the course of the renovation, the church got its current light appearance with offset corners.
Furnishing
- Two early Gothic tabernacles in the choir.
- Three vault frescos from the 14th century, in the west a mercy seat , in the north an angel ( Matthew ) and an eagle ( John ), in the south a bull ( Luke ) and a lion ( Mark ). The fresco on the east side was probably destroyed when the apse was being built.
- A baptismal font that was set up in the baptistery in 1953 from Neunkirchen amid protests from the local population. It dates from the early 13th century and is decorated with bars in the throat. It has a metal cover with a cross on top and a bowl with a copper lid . The old Ueberau baptismal font, a 62 by 72 cm yellow sandstone basin, is the last remaining remnant of the old equipment of the church, but it was removed from the church and used as a pump trough and cattle trough on a local farm until 1900, when it was sold for 20 marks was sold to the State Museum in Darmstadt . Attempts to buy the baptismal font back in 1952 or at least to get it on permanent loan failed.
- In 1960 an altar made of Odenwald sandstone was set up in the choir. It is adorned with a bronze crucifix with rock crystal, accompanied by two bronze candlesticks. It replaces a wooden altar from 1883. The medieval altar was dedicated to Saint Jodokus , but is now lost. One of them is an altar of Mary that used to be in today's baptistery. A third altar is also sometimes mentioned, but is not secured.
- Three tombs have been preserved in the baptistery. One comes from the Reinheim pastor Johannes Gotzmann, who was responsible for the late Gothic renovation of the church. He died on September 8, 1480 and was first buried in Wersau and only later brought to Ueberau. It shows a picture of the dead under an engraved eyelash .
The other two tombs belong to two local aristocrats, a knight Sinolt and his wife Barbara, who both initially stood to the left of the west portal and were only moved to their present location in 1939. These two also show pictures of the deceased. The family coat of arms is affixed to the lower right corner. The knight's coat of arms shows a silver stag pole in blue. The woman's two bars, but cannot be attributed to any family. Both died in the 30s of the 15th century.
Wersau door
The Wersauer Türchen was the eastern entrance to the churchyard from Brensbacher Strasse. Today it is built into the southern retaining wall above the entrance to the churchyard. The passage is 1.78 m high and has grooves on the left and right in the walls. These emerged when knights going to war sharpened their weapons there and thus promised divine help. The name is said to have come from the fact that Wersau is said to have been a branch of Ueberau in the past and that Wersauer had to hike to Ueberau to go to church services, coming from the direction of Hundredmorgen through this when they entered the cemetery.
Bells
Ueberau initially had two bells, one of which had to be given to French troops in 1647 . In 1659 the remaining bell, which "last rang dark and razor-light", was melted down and replaced. It hung for the funeral of master baker Johann Philipp Bauer on May 22, 1805, where it shattered. This was replaced and a second one was added in 1864. In 1884 the bell from 1805 broke and it was decided in 1900 to get a completely new bell. Andreas Hamm in Frankenthal had new bells with the triad fis ais ice cast. These survived the First World War unscathed, but in the Second , Ueberau had to give up two bells in 1941. They were taken to the central bell camp in Hamburg , where they were subjected to bombing and looting, which is why only the smaller of the two came back in 1947. The larger bell with the strike note f sharp was re-cast and received the inscription “To the fallen and missing in memory of Joh 15,3”. It was consecrated on November 18, 1951 by Dean Baumann.
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 49 ′ 26.5 " N , 8 ° 50 ′ 45.3" E