Reinhard Church (Bad Nauheim)

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Reinhardskirche from the southwest, March 2014
Reinhardskirche from the northeast, March 2014

The Reinhard Church in Bad Nauheim was built in the years 1731–1733 as a church for the Lutheran minority in the Dorheim office of the predominantly Reformed county of Hanau-Münzenberg . Today it serves as the Russian Orthodox Church of Bad Nauheim.

Lutheran Church

Religious political background

The church owes its origin to the biconfessionalism of the German Reformation , especially in the county of Hanau-Munzenberg . The county had been reformed since the reign of Count Philipp Ludwig II of Hanau-Munzenberg . When the Counts of Hanau-Münzenberg died out in 1642, their inheritance fell to the Lutheran Count Friedrich Casimir von Hanau-Lichtenberg . This made the county de facto bi-denominational within a few decades. Count Friedrich Casimir and his successors promoted the Lutheran communities in the county of Hanau-Munzenberg against the still existing Reformed majority of their subjects.

Church building

The architect of the church was the count builder Christian Ludwig Hermann . The model was the Reinhard Church in Steinau an der Strasse , which was built by the same architect , albeit larger . The foundation stone was laid in April 1732, following preliminary work in 1731. The Reinhardskirche in Bad Nauheim is a small hall building with rounded corners and arched windows with gothic , very simple tracery . The bell tower stands on the narrow western side and at the same time crowns the main entrance, above which the coat of arms of the Counts of Hanau can still be found today. The altar and pulpit were probably originally arranged on the east wall of the church. On October 4, 1733, the church was in the presence of the sovereign, Count Johann Reinhard III. , inaugurated.

Pastor

The names of the Lutheran pastors at the Reinhardskirche have been passed down from their construction to the dissolution of biconfessionalism in the Hanau Union . These were: Johann Philipp Oberndorfer until 1735, Johann Philipp Mehrling until 1738, Johann Ludwig Reinhard Handwerck until 1743, Johann Philipp Koch until 1758, Johann Georg Reussner until 1762, Philipp Christoph Laupus until 1789, Pflüger until 1792, Vulpius until 1797, Johann Peter Emmel until 1800, Adolf Müller until 1804.

Reinhard Church

After the Hanauer Union had united the two denominational evangelical congregations in Nauheim in 1818 , the denominational difference had ceased to exist and the former "Lutheran Church" was renamed " Reinhardskirche " (after the building sponsor Count Johann Reinhard), one in the former County Hanau-Munzenberg then the usual procedure. From 1824/25 the church was given up as a place for worship. In 1828/30 the government in Hanau even intended to tear down the church and have it rebuilt in nearby Schwalheim . In 1836, however, it was makeshift repaired using old windows from the Wilhelmskirche , so that it could be used again temporarily for the duration of construction work in the Wilhelmskirche. Then it stood empty until 1866.

Roman Catholic Church

In 1866, the government of the Electorate of Hesse-Kassel , to which Bad Nauheim belonged at the time, decreed the loan of the Reinhard Church to the local Catholics . In the same year, however, as a result of the political changes after the German War , Nauheim fell to the Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt , so that the decree did not take effect for the time being. It was not until June 21, 1868 that the Reinhard Church was consecrated by Pastor Helferich as a Catholic church in honor of Saint Alban of Mainz and the first Roman Catholic service was celebrated in it. The church was initially rented for twenty guilders a year. The community was under the community of Nieder-Mörlen , but belonged to the parish of Hanau in the diocese of Fulda . In February 1869 Nauheim was assigned to the newly founded parish Friedberg . The services were now held by Pastor Gabel, later Pastor Bauer and Pastor Thöbes. When the Roman Catholic community built the Bonifatius Church for itself in 1905 , they no longer needed the Reinhard Church.

Orthodox Church

requirements

At the end of the 19th century, the number of Russian spa guests in Bad Nauheim increased steadily. While in 1869 there were 112 (15.3% of all foreign guests), their number was in 1897: 1696, 1898: 2027, 1899: 2401, 1900: 2239, 1901: 2267 and 1902: 2540. In 1912 the Russians joined them 4533 people 45.05% of all foreign spa guests. The need for a Russian Orthodox Church for the spa guests from Russia in the city was therefore considerable.

Preliminary planning for your own church building

On July 4, 1902, a gathering of people interested in building a Russian church took place in the Kurhaus under the chairmanship of Priest Ioann Albow from Saint Petersburg , which together with the city and the spa administration initiated a fundraising campaign for the benefit of the project. A building committee was founded, headed by the Bishop of Narva Innokentij (Beljajew) as first vicar bishop of the St. Petersburg diocese responsible for the churches in Western Europe. The practical work was entrusted to the head of the Russian embassy church in Berlin, Archpriest Alexej Malzew . The plan was to build a chapel in honor of St. Olga in the spa gardens . In order to be able to hold church services beforehand, the congregation rented the Reinhard Church from 1905.

Use of the Reinhardskirche

When the collection of donations for the new building stalled, the Russian community decided to stay in the Reinhardskirche and renovate it. In 1907 it and the rectory were bought by the Orthodox church association " Brotherhood of the Holy Prince Vladimir ", to which the church belongs to this day. In 1907/1908 the interior was redesigned, galleries , altar and pulpit as well as all baroque furnishings were removed and an iconostasis was added.

The first church services after the renovation were celebrated on June 27, 1908, by the head of the house church of the St. Petersburg Emperor Nicholas Orphanage, Archpriest Pavel Dokuchaew. The Reinhardskirche was officially consecrated as an Orthodox church on July 21, 1908 by Bishop Vladimir (Putjata) of Kronstadt, who was responsible for the Russian churches in Western Europe, as an Orthodox church in honor of Saint Seraphim of Sarov and Saint Innocent of Irkutsk : He concelebrated: Archpriest Alexej Maltzew, monk priest Stefan ( Baden-Baden ), archpriest Sergij Protopopow ( Wiesbaden ), archpriest Jewgenij Solowjew ( Coburg ), priest Arsenij Wolskij ( Stuttgart ), archpriest Pavel Dokutschaew ( Saint Petersburg ), priest Alexander Skaballanowitsch ( Grodno ), priest Pjotr Roshdestvenskij (head of the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg ), deacon Nikolaj Tichomirow ( Prague ), deacon Ioann Stakowskij ( London ), deacon Sergij Polewoj ( Dresden ). The service was accompanied by the choir of the Berlin embassy church. After the subsequent procession around the church, Maltzew gave a speech in German and Russian. The previous building committee was transformed into a board of trustees, which should take care of the preservation, maintenance and all matters of the church.

Iconostasis

Duchess Maria Alexandrowna of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha , Russian Grand Duchess and mother of Victoria Melita , the first wife of Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig and sovereign of Bad Nauheim, donated the house iconostasis from the Alexander- house , which was closed the same year after the death of her husband and son. Newskij house chapel in Friedenstein Castle in Gotha for the new building project. The house iconostasis from Gotha was too small for that when the community decided to continue using the Reinhard Church. It was therefore handed over to the Maria Magdalena House Church of the Brotherhood in Bad Brückenau , which was inaugurated on August 4, 1908 . Bishop Innokentij (Beljaew) von Tambow and Schatzk , who had headed the building committee for the construction of the Russian Orthodox Church in Bad Nauheim since 1902, gave the church in Bad Nauheim the old iconostasis made around 1805/1810 from the Sosima, which was no longer needed - Savvati Church of the Sarov Monastery , where a new iconostasis was erected after the canonization of Venerable Seraphim in 1903.

use

Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna

The goodwill of the Russian imperial family towards the church in Bad Nauheim was great: The two princesses born in Hesse and near the Rhine, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and her sister Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna took over the patronage of the church. A special highlight was in August 1910, when the tsarist family attended services several times during their stay at the neighboring Friedberg Castle . Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna was a sister of the ruling Grand Duke of Hesse and married to the last Russian Tsar , Nicholas II . A plaque on the west wall of the church commemorates the event. The book of the Apostles , which was first read in the presence of the imperial guests, is still used today for the Apostles' readings in the church . The large chandelier decorated with enamel is said to have been donated to the church by the tsarist family.

During the First World War the church was under administration. Due to the absence of Russian spa guests as a result of the Russian Revolution , church services were then only held irregularly during a few summer months, celebrated by the priests Aleksandr Avaev (1922), Ioann Leontschukow (1923, 1924), Bishop Tichon (Lyashchenko) (1926) and Archpriest Aleksandr Schabaschew from Brussels (1933, 1939, 1943). From 1944 the church served as a storage room for items from bombed-out buildings. On April 27, 1945 it was reopened for services. Under the priests Wasilij Winogradow (1945-1947) and Arkadij Szepuro (1947-1951) there was a mixed Russian-Greek church community. 1951–1974 was Archpriest Leonid Graf Ignatiew (a grandson of the Russian diplomat Nikolai Pawlowitsch Ignatjew ) head of the Russian Orthodox communities in Frankfurt am Main , Bad Homburg and Bad Nauheim . His son, Archpriest Dimitri Graf Ignatiew , has held this office since 1974 .

Since the local Russian Orthodox congregation is small today, services are only held at greater intervals today. Since 2003, the “ Friends of the Russian Church / Reinhard Church Bad Nauheim e. V. “the community in maintaining the church. On October 1, 2006, the administrator of the church, Brigitta Gebauer , received the “ Prize of the Community Foundation - for Civic Commitment in Bad Nauheim ” for her long-term care of the Reinhard Church . On November 26, 2015, she was also awarded the Letter of Honor of the State of Hesse by the Mayor of Bad Nauheim, Armin Häuser, on behalf of the Hessian Prime Minister Volker Bouffier .

Worth knowing

When a pedestrian zone was set up in Reinhardstrasse in 2001 , the brotherhood sold the part of the alley that belonged to them along the north side of the church to the city. The historic old corridor boundary , which bounded the church property to the north, remained in place even when a path gradually formed from a footpath along the north side of the Reinhardskirche and the adjacent buildings completely changed. The brotherhood was allowed to give a name to the previously unnamed alley, because it never officially existed. At her suggestion, it was inaugurated on July 6, 2003 by Mayor Bernd Rohde in the presence of representatives of the parish as "Alexej-Maltzew-Gässchen" and sprinkled with holy water and consecrated by the priests Slawomir Iwaniuk and Alexander Zaitsev from Wiesbaden .

The iconostasis was re-erected in May 2018 after almost five years of restoration work. The general renovation of the church building, which lasted 15 years and particularly affected the baroque tower dome, also ended in 2018.

literature

  • Georg Dehio , Handbook of German Art Monuments - Hesse II. Administrative Region Darmstadt. (Ed .: Folkhard Cremer and Tobias Michael Wolf), 3rd edition, Munich 2008, p. 43f.
  • Heinrich Görnert: The names of the Bad Nauheimer streets . Wetterauer Geschichtsblätter 10, 1961.
  • Caroline Grottker: Lutheran churches in the county of Hanau-Münzenberg under Count Johann Reinhard III. (1712–1736) [unpublished master's thesis in the Department of Philology and Art Studies at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main]. Frankfurt 1984, pp. 72-76.
  • Monika Gräfin Ignatiew: Russian Churches in German Baths , accompanying document to the exhibition 1989–1990 in the Gothic House Bad Homburg, Bad Homburg 1989.
  • Hermann Knott: The Reinhard Church in Bad Nauheim . Bad Nauheimer Jahrbuch 2/1913.
  • L. Kraft: Wetterau village churches. Contributions to the history of church building in the Friedberg district . Dissertation Darmstadt 1919.
  • Alfred Martin: The inauguration of the Protestant Lutheran, later Reinhard Church in Bad Nauheim in 1733 . Bad Nauheimer Jahrbuch 12 u. 13, 1934.
  • Gleb Rahr : On the history of the Russian Orthodox Church in Bad Nauheim and its historical iconostasis . Lecture from July 3, 1991. Bad Nauheim town archive.
  • Dimitrij Rahr: Brief history of the Reinhardskirche / Russian Church in Bad Nauheim . Lecture on July 21, 2008. Bad Nauheim City Archives.
  • Irene von Schweder: The Russian Orthodox Church in Bad Nauheim, Reinhardstrasse 14 . Accompanying document for church tours. Bad Nauheim 1972; City archive Bad Nauheim.
  • Heinz Wionski: Cultural monuments in Hessen. Wetteraukreis II, Part 2, Friedberg to Wöllstadt. Published by the State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen , Vieweg, Braunschweig / Wiesbaden 1999, ISBN 3-528-06227-4 , p. 177. ( Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany ).
  • Inge Wolf: Christian Ludwig Hermann. Construction director at Hanauer Hof . In: Hanauer Geschichtsblätter 30 (1988), pp. 445ff (486-490).

Web links

Commons : Reinhardskirche  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfram Ahlers: Elaborate restoration: The return of a beauty. In: www.faz.net. May 19, 2018. Retrieved May 19, 2018 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 21 ′ 51.7 "  N , 8 ° 44 ′ 13.6"  E