St. Vitus Church (Wilkenburg)

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The St. Vitus Church in Wilkenburg

The St. Vitus Church is a church in Wilkenburg , a district of Hemmingen in the Hanover region in Lower Saxony . The listed building is the second oldest building in the city of Hemmingen after the Nikolai Church in Hiddestorf .

history

Southeast view

According to building archaeological and building historical studies carried out during the renovation of the church in 2001, a Romanesque hall church was built in the first half of the 12th century at the site of today's church . The preserved nave is the oldest part of the St. Vitus Church.

The high arched windows on the long sides, which can still be proven when walled up, correspond to the architectural style of the construction period. The easily recognizable bricked-up arches on the north and south sides of the nave indicate that the building had side arms in the 12th century . Such side arms were usually used as burial places. This suggests that the church was founded as the local landlord's own church .

The church's original choir was replaced in the 12th century by a larger choir that has been preserved since then. A vestibule was added to the south side of the church in the 12th century . The church tower that was built later stands on its site.

The church in Wilkenburg was referred to as a parochial church in writings in 1438 . After the Reformation was introduced in the Principality of Calenberg around 1542 , its sovereign Erich , a Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg , had the right to collate the parish of the church in Wilkenburg, including the associated chapels in Arnum and Hemmingen .

During the Thirty Years War , Wilkenburg and its church were looted by Tilly's Catholic troops in 1625 and by Swedish Protestant troops in 1640 . Shortly after the fighting in northern Germany was over, extensive repairs were carried out and the church received its baroque interior in the 17th century.

At the beginning of the 18th century a doorway was broken into the outer wall of the choir and in 1704 the choir window was enlarged. The nave was also given larger windows on its south side.

In 1774 a draft for the new church was rejected by the building authorities of the consistory . The repair approved instead was not carried out either. In 1777 there was again a new building plan.

In the 18th century, the church was given a newly bricked-up west facade . The church roof was redesigned in a modified form as a mansard roof with skylights. A new, self-supporting wooden bell cage was installed in the tower from the floor to the upper floor . The tower received a half-timbered upper storey and a mansard roof hood . The tower's weather vane is dated 1778.

Church bells and metal organ pipes had to be delivered for armaments production during the First World War . In the 1920s, bells and whistles were replaced. In World War II, but also had them delivered to.

The roof, windows, walls and ceiling were damaged by air raids in 1943 and 1945. In 1945 part of the roof collapsed. The flooding of the Leine in February 1946 also hit Wilkenburg and the St. Vitus Church. There was severe moisture damage to the walls, floors, stalls, altar and pulpit.

The repairs started in 1946 were followed by the removal of moisture damage from 1961 to 1963. In the 1990s, the high groundwater level and the annual flooding in the Leinen lowlands again caused considerable damage to the plaster. The interior was therefore renovated again by 2001.

Patronage

The Holy Vitus is the year 1462 as a patron mentioned the church. A door-wide stone above a walled-in entrance on the north side of the ship shows traces of the engraving of an eagle and a lion , the attributes of Vitus.

description

Nave

The current nave is the oldest part of the church. On the outside it is about 20 m long and 10 m wide, redesigned in 1704 in quarry stone masonry . The ceiling of the interior is a plastered, segmented, wooden barrel vault . The nave has had a mansard roof since the 18th century .

Choir

The Romanesque east choir on a rectangular floor plan dates from the 12th century. It is about 9 m long and 9 m wide. Its ceiling is a ribless cross vault . The choir and the wider nave are connected by a semicircular triumphal arch .

Steeple

The tower

The Wilkenburg manor came into the possession of the von Alten family in 1215 . At the end of the 14th century there was a legal dispute between Werner von Alten and the dukes Bernhard and Heinrich zu Braunschweig-Lüneburg . These had to Altens inherited land and property to Wilkenburg a fortified castle for her bailiff erected. In addition, the vestibule of the Wilkenburg church was demolished and replaced by a church tower . In 1398 the dukes agreed to have these buildings torn down again. Despite an arbitration ruling that prohibited all parties involved, Alten and his son built fortifications on their estate in Wilkenburg. The dukes complained against this. The unfinished fortified buildings of the manor and church tower were to be handed over to the citizens of Hanover for demolition. However, it is not known whether the tower was demolished again.

The tower with an area of ​​about 8 × 8 m is on the south side next to the west end of the nave. The lower area shows architectural traces of multiple construction and demolition. The date 1461 is in the sundial above the ogival, unprofiled door on its south side in Gothic minuscule m.cccc.lxi . The lower part of the tower is brickwork. The belfry that was later placed on top of it is built in half-timbered construction and has a mansard roof.

Furnishing

The interior of the St. Vitus Church is stylistically uniform from the 17th century.

The baroque-style sandstone altar has four winding columns that support the decorated structure . An oil painting with members of the von Alten family served as the altarpiece until 1898. It was replaced by an Ecce homo depiction created by Gustav Otto Müller . The Wilkenburg altarpiece has been a painting of the Last Supper since the post-war period of World War II . The wooden pulpit is decorated with figures of the evangelists .

The hexagonal basin of the octagonal dated to the year 1643, from sandstone made baptismal font is supported by three kneeling angels.

The wooden gallery , dating from 1672, is decorated with the coats of arms of the old and other noble families and decorated with scenes from the life of Jesus.

use

The St. Vitus Church is the church of the St. Vitus parish Wilkenburg-Harkenbleck in the parish of Laatzen - Springe in the Hanover district of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover . The Hemmingen districts of Wilkenburg and Harkenbleck belong to the parish . The chapel community in Arnum belonged to the St. Vitus Church until 1968 and that in Hemmingen until 1976. They became independent parishes and at that time had newly built church buildings.

From the introduction of the Reformation until after the Second World War, the St. Vitus Church always had a Protestant pastor.

As a result of the influx of displaced persons and refugees, Catholic masses were occasionally held in the church from 1946 onwards, as there were no Catholic churches in Wilkenburg and the surrounding areas, or the Herz Mariä Church, built in Arnum in 1960, was insufficient.

Musicians, ensembles and choirs often perform in the St. Vitus Church with modern or classical music.

Support association

The "Friends of the St. Vitus Church in Wilkenburg" was founded in September 1998. He raised the funds needed for the renovation that was needed at the time. By the beginning of 2019, the association had raised over 100,000 euros for the restoration and renovation of the building.

See also

literature

  • Bernd Adam, Michael A. Flechtner: The St. Vitus Church in Wilkenburg - Nine centuries of planning and building history . Celle. Ströher print 2001

Web links

Commons : St. Vitus (Wilkenburg)  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Hans-Herbert Möller (Ed.), Henner Hannig (Ed.): Landkreis Hannover. (= Monument topography Federal Republic of Germany , architectural monuments in Lower Saxony , Volume 13.1.) Friedrich Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig / Wiesbaden 1988, ISBN 3-528-06207-X , pp. 217-218.
  2. ↑ The Nikolai Church in Hiddestorf. www.hiddestorf-info.de, accessed on November 10, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q (es): The St. Vitus Church in Wilkenburg and its history. Ev.-luth. St. Vitus parish of Wilkenburg and Harkenbleck, accessed on November 10, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Welckenburg (Wilkenburg) in: Karl Kayser (ed.): The Reformation church visits in the Guelph lands 1542-1544 . Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, Göttingen 1897, p.  443–444 ( online [PDF; 25.9 MB ; accessed on October 3, 2019]).
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h Wilkenburg . In: Carl Wolff (ed.): The art monuments of the province of Hanover . Issue 1: Districts of Hanover and Linden . Self-published by the provincial administration, Theodor Schulzes Buchhandlung, Hanover 1899, p.  41–47 ( online [PDF; 10.0 MB ; accessed on October 26, 2018]).
  6. ^ Stefan Amt: The building administration of the Hanover consistory up to the time of Conrad Wilhelm Hase. (PDF; 306 kB) bhb-Hannover, pp. 4–5 , accessed on November 10, 2019 .
  7. ↑ (es): Who was Saint Vitus? Ev.-luth. St. Vitus parish of Wilkenburg and Harkenbleck, accessed on November 10, 2019 .
  8. ↑ a b c d Wilkenburg . In: H. Wilh. H. Mithoff (ed.): Art monuments and antiquities in Hanover . First volume: Fürstenthum Calenberg. Helwing'sche Hofbuchhandlung, Hanover 1871, p.  179–180 ( online [PDF; 15.1 MB ; accessed on March 11, 2017]).
  9. ↑ Klaus Stüber: His life, his family. Förderverein Mausoleum Graf Carl von Alten eV, 2019, accessed on November 10, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Erika Schuck: The enigmatic altarpiece of the St. Vitus Church. (PDF; 3.8 MB) In: Together. Evangelical Lutheran Church Region Hemmingen, p. 4 , accessed on November 10, 2019 .
  11. ^ Wilkenburg-Harkenbleck. www.kirchenkreis-laatzen-springe.de, accessed on November 10, 2019 .
  12. ↑ a b Chronicle of the Heart of Mary with St. Johannes Bosco. Catholic parish St. Augustinus Hannover, accessed on November 10, 2019 .
  13. ↑ Music in St. Vitus. Ev.-luth. St. Vitus parish of Wilkenburg and Harkenbleck, 2019, accessed on November 10, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Katharina Kutsche: Tombs should be lined up again. www.haz.de , January 8, 2019, accessed November 10, 2019 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 18 ′ 47.8 "  N , 9 ° 45 ′ 34.2"  E