St. John (Warza)

St. Johannes village church

The St. Johannes Church is the village church of Warza in the Thuringian district of Gotha and is located at the southern end of the village.

history

Keystone with the year 1554

Construction on a small octagonal chapel made of Seeberg sandstone began on the 5th Sunday after Easter ( Rogate ) in 1520. Since then, the entrance to the church tower has been on the north side of the building, which was rebuilt and expanded between 1550 and 1554. Some of the original stones have been reused at the main entrance. In 1554 the chapel and tower were enlarged. The year can be found in the keystone of the western window in the south wall of the ship.

Luther window

The font from 1578 was stolen and replaced with a replica. In 1728 the tower was torn down and the bells were hung in a belfry in the small cemetery . A small sacristy was built into the new tower . In 1825 the tower button was renewed . In 1840 the church received an organ with a closed prospectus and a very unique sound for 1,400 Reichstaler . It was built by Johann Friedrich Schulze and has 20 stops on two manuals and a pedal . Since 1880 a painting has adorned the chancel, which was equipped with two new colored windows in 1885. The Luther window followed in 1890 , the eastern window in the south wall of the nave. It shows Martin Luther at the Reichstag in Worms . In 1909 the church received two windows from Dingelstädt . The church survived the two world wars largely unscathed. After turning in the autumn and winter 1996/1997 renovated ABM ; forces large parts of the sanctuary. Five benches were heated in 2003, the gutter was renewed in 2005 and the lower staircase in the main entrance. In 2011 the church tower received a new slate roof made of Mayen Moselle slate with a lantern , hood , golden tower ball and golden weather vane . This first phase of construction, financed by various public donors and church parishioners, cost around 140,000 euros. In a second construction phase (2011-2014) extensive renovation work was carried out on the tower, the tower hood and the clock.

Further conservation measures such as a new plaster and the archiving, restoration and protective treatment of many grave stones or wall stones that are standing or jumbled up in the cemetery are still pending.

The parish Warza was dissolved on January 1, 2013 and with ten other parishes in the area to Ev. Emmaus parish Goldbach-Wangenheim merged. It belongs to the Gotha parish of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany .

architecture

The church has a double gallery on the north and west walls of the nave. The roof of the long building is covered with red tiles. A spacious cemetery with a size of around 3.36 hectares is attached to the three-sided choir wall in the east and the south wall.