St. Lucas Church (Scheeßel)
The St. Lucas Church is an Evangelical Lutheran parish church in the center of the Lower Saxon town of Scheeßel in the Rotenburg (Wümme) district . It is named after the evangelist Luke .
After a previous Romanesque building was demolished in 1755, the foundation stone for today's single-nave church building with its western church tower and the three-bell bells was laid in the same year . The interior of the church is mostly in the Baroque and Rococo styles .
description
The outer
The simple hall church, built from field stones from 1755 to 1758, is plastered white and has no special architectural ornament from the outside.
The nave with a floor plan of 17 × 32 meters and a hipped tiled roof has a small sacristy annex at its eastern end . The long sides each have a round arch portal in their middle, which is framed by high round arched windows with central pillars.
At the west end of the ship is a 36 meter high, square church tower with a side length of nine meters, which can be entered through a round arched portal in the south wall. It is crowned by a copper-covered buckled helmet with a final wind direction indicator . Its upper floor has two flat-arched sound openings on the north, south and west sides, while the lower floor has only narrow slits of light.
The ground floor of the church tower is connected to the nave via a door and serves as a vestibule. Since May 1952 there has been a memorial site made up of 15 stone memorial plaques for the 437 of the Scheeßels parish who died or were missing in World War II . Stairs lead from the vestibule to the galleries.
Furnishing
The St. Lucas Church today offers around 1000 seats. Like the building itself, its furnishings date from the middle of the 18th century and are in the peasant baroque style that is typical of northern Germany. The upper end of the nave forms a boarded and plastered wooden ceiling with a flat arched vault in the middle, which is 12.70 meters high. It is supported by two rows of wooden pillars.
The portrait of Scheeßel pastor Adolph Johann von Finckh, made in 1784 by the Harburg painter Niclaus Pätz, whose life and work was inextricably linked to the history of the Scheeßel Church, hangs on the south side of the church. In 1755, against great opposition, he pushed through the construction of today's church building.
Altar and pulpit
At the eastern end is the simply designed altar , above which a painting depicting the Last Supper hangs from 1885 and 1955 . Above is the pulpit , which can be accessed via a staircase from the sacristy and is framed by two columns with a Corinthian capital . Together with two pilasters , they support a cornice with the seated statuette of Saint Luke in the middle. Above the cornice, a half-relief shows the symbol of the “Eye of God”, popular in the Baroque era , an eye framed by a triangle and sunbeams against a blue sky.
All decorative elements in the altar and pulpit area are from the late baroque era. The design influences of the Rococo are already visible in them, but the symmetrical arrangement of the classical Baroque was still followed.
Church stalls
The altar is flanked on both sides by additions and superstructures made of wood with the chairs of people who were formerly elevated or influential Scheeßel people. In the northeast corner of the nave, on the ground floor , are the church chairs of the Scheeßel mill owners, decorated with rich carvings and cartouches in the Rococo style ; above the simple seats of the pastor family. In the southeast corner are the chairs of the Fricke family and the Scheeßel magistrates who worked until 1882. Their seats used to be decorated with the emblem of the Hanover royal family . In addition, the St. Lucas Church has four other specially decorated seats. On the southern gallery , a carved coat of arms shows the seating of the von Bothmer family from Lauenbrück . Its counterpart on the northern gallery belonged to the von Fick family from the Veerse manor . Under the organ gallery at the west end of the nave there are also the pews belonging to the Stoltze family and the Scheeßel sexton , who was also an organist and schoolmaster.
organ
The organ is on the west gallery . Its current shape and size results from a reconstruction and simultaneous restoration for around 200,000 DM in 1972/73. It is based on an organ from 1764/65, which replaced a smaller predecessor from 1757. The 1765 organ version had two manuals with ten registers and six registers each in the chest and pedals .
After around 30 years, repairs to the instrument were already necessary due to moisture and temperature fluctuations, which was accompanied by a rebuilding of the organ in 1802. Another renovation took place in 1881, when the organ was adapted to the romantic taste of the time.
During the First World War in 1917, many organ parts made of high-quality metal had to be removed from the instrument and handed over to the military. It was only after the end of the war that replacements could be obtained and reinstalled.
In 1934/35 the organ was extended by a Rückpositiv , which was removed again in 1971 with the work of the Dutch company Vierdag . Today's organ consists of a main section, a chest section and a pedal section with a total of 23 registers on slider drawers . The actions are mechanical.
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P
- Secondary register : Zimbelstern
- Mood : Bach after waiter
Bells
The bell of the church consists of three ornamental bells with the pitches e, g sharp and b. The smallest and lightest of them at 6.5 quintals is also the youngest. Since June 1980 it has been a replacement for a bell made in 1652, which is also called de Bingelklock and weighs only 1.8 quintals. It is still kept in the church and will serve as a cemetery bell in the future.
The other two bells are 100 years older and were made by a Hamburg bell founder in 1757. Their lower diameters are 1.25 and 1.27 meters with a weight of 23 and 16 centners.
The bell has only been operated by an electrical system since the 1960s, previously this was done by hand by the respective sexton.
history
Emergence
Four sacrificial stones found on the church forecourt indicate that the location of today's church was already used as a place of sacrifice and thing place in pre-Christian times . The current church building had two previous buildings. A first chapel in the Beekeniederungen dates from around 805. It was followed around 1150 by a Romanesque building made of field stones a little west of the current location, which offered 639 seats (384 for men, 255 for women). In a Verden diocese document from the year 1205, the church is first mentioned as Scesle as the seat of a Verden archdeacon . It had a floor plan of 28 × 10 meters and an internal height of 7.25 meters.
After Daniel von Wichtrich was appointed Bishop of Verden in 1342, there were disputes between him and the Verden cathedral chapter under the direction of Canon Gottfried von Werpen from Rotenburg about the legitimacy of the election of a bishop. In the course of the ensuing military actions the nearby was not only Burg Rotenburg besieged, but the Guelph armed forces of Lünebürger Duke Wilhelm II. Occupied and devastated in the name of Bishop Daniels in 1347, the Scheeßeler Church, although they had previously been fixed by Gottfried von Werpen . After the Verden cathedral chapter had recognized Daniel von Wichtrich as the legitimate Verden bishop, he had the church repaired and his coat of arms worked into one of the new church windows.
Thirty Years' War
During the Thirty Years' War , the church tower and the rectory burned down in 1626 . The heat of the fire also melted its peal - consisting of a large and a small bell. In 1646 the church tower was restored and received a new, large bell. In 1652 the new casting and the installation of a small bell took place.
In the course of the fighting during the Northern War from 1674 to 1679, the churchyard was converted into a ski jump against Swedish troops and the church building was used as a guardhouse. The rectory, which had been destroyed 66 years ago, was not rebuilt until twelve years after the end of the war.
New building
When, in 1754, the old church building had become too small for the steadily growing parish and also became dilapidated, the planning of a new church began at the instigation of Pastor Adolph Johann von Finckh. In order to co-finance this project, a so-called church chair law was decided. This allowed members of the parish to purchase a permanent seat in the church with the appropriate identification. On March 17, 1755, the old church was demolished in favor of a new building. On April 14th of the same year the foundation stone was laid for the building at its current location, which was supposed to offer space for 867 believers. Under the direction of master mason Christian Goetze from Wischhafen, it was completed in October 1757 and inaugurated on Michaelmas day of the following year (September 29, 1758). There are two different lists of the costs of the new church building. While one of them says 5686 Reichstaler , the other shows 7329.39 Reichstaler. As early as the middle of 1757, damage to the large bell and the middle bell made in 1718 by a bell caster from Stade were discovered, which made it necessary to re-cast in the same year.
From 1765, today's church tower was also built. After the work was completed in June 1766, the costs for this amounted to 4,215 Reichstalers. In the following 150 years or so, no basic construction work was carried out, only minor beautification work on the church building. In 1778 the church tower was painted white and a porch was built in front of the main portal - the so-called bride's house , which was demolished again in 1898. After the church roof structure had been renewed in 1800, the building received a new interior painting from July to September 1838, which was followed by the gilding of the church tower top in 1844. In 1851 the old church tower clock from 1688 was replaced by a new model that was overhauled again in 1914.
The church construction survived the Second World War unscathed. Due to a war ordinance in February 1942, the large and medium bells had to be handed over to the armaments industry as material essential to the war effort, but after the end of the war the British occupying forces returned them intact to the Scheeßel parish in April 1948 and July 1949.
renovation
After the church tower was not re-covered with wooden shingles until 1951, the entire building was restored for the first time in April 1955 on the occasion of the upcoming 1150th anniversary of Scheeßel. This involved significant structural changes inside the church. Among other things, the altarpiece was restored and a new baptismal font was installed. In addition to a new interior painting, the entire church stalls were also renewed, which was associated with the unofficial abolition of the naming convention and thus the church seat law of 1757. However, the right was not officially repealed until 1956.
In the period from 1959 to 1960 Scheeßel received a new rectory. The old building from 1692 was demolished and replaced by a new building, which was erected in the same place as its predecessor in order to meet the requirements of the monument protection . At the same time, an extension from 1752 was rebuilt. In 1983 renovation work was carried out inside the church, before thorough repairs to the exterior followed from October 1988 to January 1990. Not only was the wooden roof of the church tower replaced by a copper roof, but the entire church was newly plastered and given a white coat of paint.
At the beginning of the 1990s, a replica of the former stake was erected on the church square, although this did not meet with the undivided approval of the Scheeßel population. This stake had previously served as a public pillory on the access road to the church, where "sinners" were chained to the neck and displayed in public before it was removed from the churchyard in 1945.
On the occasion of Scheeßel's 1200th anniversary, further maintenance and renovation measures followed in 2004 on the church building. The church forecourt was also redesigned.
Gravesites
Until a separate cemetery was set up in 1847, the deceased were buried in the churchyard surrounding the church. The most striking tomb in the courtyard was the mausoleum of the Lauenbrücker Count von Bothmer, north of the church building , which served as the family's hereditary burial place. Erected in 1698 by Julius von Bothmer, it was demolished in 1894 after the family had been allowed to build a new hereditary burial site in Lauenbrück.
Inside the church, on the north side of the church, there is the hereditary burial place of the Hamburg family Löwen, former owners of the Veerse manor. In 1908 her entire grave slab was still preserved. Today only the 52 × 40 centimeter bronze plate , which has been attached to the north longitudinal wall since 1955, still exists .
Until burials within churches in the duchies of Bremen and Verden were banned in 1792, nine nobles and pastors were also buried in front of the altar. With a special permit, Pastor Adolph Johann von Finckh was allowed to be buried in the building as the last Scheeßel parishioner in 1797.
Court linden tree
On the Scheeßeler Kirchplatz stands one of the oldest trees in Germany with a winter linden tree that is at least 600 to 650 years old - called the judicial linden tree. It has a hollow, split trunk and a crown diameter of around 16 meters. In 1959 it showed signs of deterioration to such an extent that it had to be restored by October 1960 in order to preserve it from a historical point of view.
It has been under monument protection as a natural monument since 1935 and is a reminder of the Gogerichte held here from 1288 , which were later replaced by regional courts .
literature
- Ernst Andreas Friedrich : The Lukas Church of Scheeßel . In: If stones could talk . Volume 3. Landbuch-Verlag, Hanover 1995, ISBN 3-7842-0515-1 , pp. 51-53.
- Community Scheeßel (Ed.): Chronicle of the parish Scheeßel . Self-published by the municipality, Scheeßel 1997, pp. 478–491 and pp. 496–511.
- Hinrich Meyer: History of the parish Scheeßel . Individual publications of the Stader Geschichts- und Heimatverein, Volume 6. Self-published by the community, Scheeßel 1955, pp. 414–507.
- Hector Wilhelm Heinrich Mithoff (arrangement): Art monuments and antiquities in Hanover . Volume 5. Hanover 1878 ( Duchies of Bremen and Verden with the Lande Hadeln, Counties Hoya and Diepholz ), pp. 93–94.
- Heinrich Siebern, Carl Wolff: The art monuments of the province of Hanover . Volume 5.1. Provincial Commission for Research and Conservation of the Monuments of the Province of Hanover, Hanover 1908 ( Die Kreise Verden, Rotenburg and Zeven ), pp. 163–169.
Web links
References and comments
- ↑ kirche-scheessel.de , accessed on April 26, 2007.
- ↑ Information on the St. Lucas organ , accessed on November 23, 2010.
- ↑ The author of the article on the Scheeßeler St. Lucas Church in Heinrich Siebern's 1908 publication read the year of the inscription 165Z as 1657 and misrepresented it in his publication. However, through the entire inscription it is clear that 1652 is meant.
- ↑ a b Gem. Scheeßel: Chronicle of the parish of Scheeßel . P. 496.
- ^ H. Siebern: The art monuments of the province of Hanover . P. 163.
- ↑ see H. Siebern: The Art Monuments of the Province of Hanover . Pp. 168/169.
- ↑ Gem. Scheeßel: Chronicle of the parish of Scheeßel . P. 501.
- ↑ scheessel.de , accessed on April 7, 2016.
Coordinates: 53 ° 10 ′ 10 " N , 9 ° 28 ′ 56.5" E
