St. Josef (Lang-Göns)

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Rectory and St. Josef Church, view from the southwest
Interior, view from the gallery to the east

St. Josef is the Roman Catholic parish church of the Catholic parish of St. Josef in Lang-Göns in Central Hesse . The parish of St. Josef Langgöns and the parish of Christkönig Linden belong to the Linden / Langgöns parish group, which together with the parish of St. Martin Pohlheim form the parish association "Am Limes".

Catholics in Lang-Göns

Until the Reformation

Christianity can be traced early south of Lang-Göns and the Limes (Wiesbaden, 3rd century). The Lahngau was only later by Iro-Scottish monks began to proselytize before finally 721 Boniface came with a papal missionary mandate to Hesse. The Gönser Mark (first documented mention as Gunnesheimer marca in the Lorsch Codex 777), a market community from which the four Göns places, Ebersgöns , Lang-Göns , Kirch-Göns and Pohl-Göns emerged , belonged in the Middle Ages to the Diaconate Wetzlar in the Archidiaconate Dietkirchen in the Archdiocese of Trier . Initially looked after by the mother church in Grossen Linden, Lang-Göns later became a subsidiary of Kirch-Göns and became an independent parish in the 13th century. A document (no longer preserved) from 1220 reports the first church in "villa Günße" (a previous chapel is assumed) that a Junker Hildericus built on his own property. Remnants that were found when the nave of the Jakobuskirche (Lang-Göns) was rebuilt in 1971 may have come from this previous building. The first documented pastor was Giselbert von Göns in 1296 , who referred to himself as "rector ecclesie". Pastors coming after Giselbert von Göns were "her Hrynrich der pernere" (1334), Ebirhart Snauharte (1370s, 1390s), Conrad der Zentgraf (1440) and Heinrich Meyden (1453, 1459). Landgrave Philip the Magnanimous of Hesse introduced the Reformation in his territory as early as the mid-1520s . In the office of Hüttenberg , in which Lang-Göns lay, and which he ruled as a condominium together with the Count of Nassau-Saarbrücken , the Reformation was slow to prevail, so that Philipp was not able to enforce the evangelical sermon in Lang-Göns until 1531. 98 percent of the population of Upper Hesse committed to the Protestant faith at the end of the Counter-Reformation , including the parish of the Jakobuskirche in Lang-Göns. Jacob Cordtwage (1530s) was possibly the first Protestant pastor in the up until then Catholic church in Lang-Göns.

Times of war and miracles

In the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) the Hüttenberger suffered from taxes on both Protestant and Catholic soldiers. After the victories of the Catholic military leader Tilly at the beginning of the 1620s in the Lower Palatinate, a miracle is said to have happened in Lang-Göns. In 1624 a Spanish lieutenant loyal to the Pope is said to have taken away from his trumpeter an evangelical book of edification ( Paradies-Gärtlein by Johann Arndt ), which the latter had found and read in the Lang-Göns pastor's house, and thrown it in the oven of the inn. After an hour, however, the landlady is said to have pulled the book unharmed from the flames. Landgrave Philip had the book brought to the princely library in Butzbach. The house, in the previous building of which the story is said to have taken place, is now a Hessian cultural monument as the Paradiesgärtlein house . In the Seven Years' War (1756–1763) and in the coalition wars of 1792–1815, the Hüttenberg suffered from billeting, troop movements, looting and carriage services by Catholic French and their opponents.

Enlightenment until the beginning of the 20th century

Before 1800 there were more Jews than Catholics in the Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt . The Enlightenment in the 18th century benefited both minorities, so that individual Catholics were tolerated in Protestant countries, but they were still subject to the grace of the sovereign or his Protestant consistory . The Napoleonic era following the French Revolution fundamentally changed the territorial relations in the Holy Roman Empire . The secularizations resolved in the Peace of Lunéville and in the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss broke the ecclesiastical electoral principalities. France occupied the left bank of the Rhine and compensated the secular principalities for their lost territories on the left bank of the Rhine with territories on the right bank of the until then spiritual. For the secular principality of Hessen-Darmstadt, which benefited from this, denominational unity ended. The Hessian state became the administrator of Catholic church assets through secularization. The new Catholic subjects in Starkenburg and Westphalen did not have to accept the faith of their sovereign thanks to the securities decided in the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, but were subordinate to a sovereign spiritual supervisory authority, the "Church and School Council", via the state church system, which had a Protestant and a Catholic department owned. In 1816, the state, which was now the Grand Duchy of Hesse , was given the Rheinhessen area and the Catholic city of Mainz. Article 21 of the 1820 constitution of the Grand Duchy of Hesse granted freedom of religion to Christian denominations. In 1830 the Deanery Gießen was formed. In an application to raise Butzbach to the parish curate, Pastor Mees counted Catholics from surrounding villages, u. a. in Lang-Göns, who would have to parish from Gießen to Butzbach. In 1892 Butzbach became a parish curate.

In 1830 Georg Wilhelm Justin Wagner, Grand Ducal Geometer, described the Grand Duchy of Hesse, including Langgöns: "The place has 196 houses and 1151 inhabitants, who are Protestant apart from 2 Catholics, 5 Mennonites and 30 Jews." The two Catholics were Ferdinand von Ritgen and his wife Clara. Professor Ritgen, who worked in Giessen, bought the burnt down office building, which his son Hugo von Ritgen rebuilt.

After 1945

Certificate of the Sudeten German Landsmannschaft for the support of the former residents and members of the district of Bärn

In the immediate period before 1946 there was only one Catholic family in Lang-Göns. During the turmoil of the Second World War, evacuees, including many Catholics, came to Lang-Göns from the bomb-threatened cities of the Rhine-Main area, but returned to their nearby places of origin. In 1945 Silesian refugees and, after the war, Sudeten German expellees and, to a lesser extent, Banat Swabians came to Lang-Göns. The new citizens formed a Catholic community and in 1950 made up around 25% of the town's population with 763 out of 3,013 inhabitants .↔ The Catholic community was cared for in the post-war period from Butzbach, 10 km away. On October 15, 1946, a local chaplaincy was set up in Lang-Göns , which also included the neighboring villages of Grüningen and Kirch-Göns. Artur Seidel, who was a pastor in Wiesenberg (Eastern Sudetenland) before , became the first pastor in Lang-Göns in 1947. From 1949, the company began to keep its own baptism, marriage and death registers. With the entry into force of the diocesan statutes, the local chaplaincy was renamed the parish rectorate on December 25, 1957 . On November 22, 1968, Bishop Herrmann Volk raised Lang-Göns to a parish curate with effect from December 1, 1968 . The title of this curate was St. Josef, and Langgöns became independent. Pastors following Artur Seidel were Wolfgang Grabosch (1972), Franz Sachs (1980), Heribert Kronberger (1987), Manfred Lebisch (1997) and, since 2005, Mariusz Drwal. At the end of December 2012 the community had 1162 members.

In 1963 Lang-Göns became the sponsor town for the community of Groß-Dittersdorf in the district of Bärn (Sudetenland). Since then, the Bärner Heimattreffen has been held annually in Lang-Göns. In 1964 and 1974, the Bärner Heimatstube was set up as a museum and is now located in the Langgöns community center with around 4,000 exhibits.

Church building

North side in structural framework, construction of the bell tower in 1961

Although the Protestant parish made the St. James' Church available to the Catholics for services after the Second World War, the desire for their own place of worship grew in the Catholic parish. At the beginning of December 1949, the working group of expellees in Lang-Göns designated the Hebbel Inn on the corner of Bahnhofstrasse and Mühlberg as a permanent meeting place. This “Zur Linde” inn is associated with the names Grote, Löwenich, Bischoff and Hebbel. The building was built in 1905 and served the builder W. Pfannenschmidt as a restaurant with an attached butcher's shop (from 1918). The Catholic community rented the inn's dance hall in the early 1950s and converted it into an emergency church . In 1954 the two-storey building with the hall above and a bowling alley below was bought and the front inn rooms were expanded into a parsonage. In 1955 the hall was converted into a chapel. In 1955, Pastor Artur Seidel asked for permission to benedict and for the title of St. Joseph, Bridegroom of Our Lady (S. Joseph, spons. BMV). The vicar general at the time, Apostolic Protonotary Wilhelm Kastell, approved both the benedication and title in the same year. A house consecration took place (probably). The first service was held on Christmas Eve 1955.

In 1960/61 the building received a small bell tower (Thorn, Lang-Göns). In 1965, Bishop Albert Stohr consecrated the chancel. In the middle / end of the 1960s, the false ceiling between the hall and the bowling alley was torn down in order to create the church interior at ground level and to finally convert the building into a parish church. On December 1, 1968, Cathedral Chapter Hermann Berg authorized the church and consecrated the altar in honor of St. Joseph . The building was renovated in 1972/73. With the help of volunteers, a parish hall was built in the courtyard. a. was used by the newly founded scout tribe St. Josef, Langgöns in the Association of the German Scouting Society St. Georg (DPSG). The roof was renewed in 1981 and the church was repainted. In 1983 the interior of the church was renovated, a wooden ceiling was put in, the walls were insulated and the walls were painted. The previous windows were replaced by prismatic glass walls. On the north side, the windows are shorter because of the parish hall attached at ground level. The church with the parish hall can be enlarged on high religious holidays. The parsonage is used by the parish office, the scouts and for the children's worship service. The pastor lives in the parsonage by the Christkönig Linden church.

Architecture and interior design

Neo-Gothic crucifix, east wall
Joseph figure, on the right of the triumphal arch, with the angle measure , his saint attribute . The church is consecrated to Joseph of Nazareth.

The east-facing church is a hall church on a rectangular floor plan and is closed off by a gable roof. The roof turret on the east side houses two small bells. Since the rectory is built on to the west and the east side has no windows, the interior receives light through its windows on the long sides, which start at half the height. There are five rectangular leaded glass windows on each side . The interior is characterized by four protruding round arches that support the wooden barrel vault. In the eastern part, the round arch is significantly widened and, as a triumphal arch, separates the altar area, which is raised by three steps.

In 1953 the Catholic parish of Butzbach moved from its St. Joseph church there to the newly built St. Gottfried church . In 1955, St. Joseph in Butzbach was profaned (desecrated) and converted into a cemetery chapel. The parish of Butzbach then made several sacred objects from their old church available to the Lang-Göns parish for the new beginning. Underneath as a crucifix a neo-Gothic mission cross (the sisters of the Mission Society Queen of the Apostles worked in Butzbach) that hung on the north wall in Butzbach and now hangs on the east wall in Lang-Göns. The cross was donated for a mission in 1922 by employees of the Butzbach company Meguin . A year later it received a corpus, which in the year of hyperinflation in 1923 was calculated at 14 million Reichsmarks, paid for by railway employees in the passive resistance . It was consecrated by the Benedictine Father Corbinian from the Ilbenstadt Monastery. Furthermore, a series of fourteen neo-baroque stations of the cross by the artist Gotthold J. Rettinger from Aschaffenburg, which are attached to the long sides. And finally, a figure of Joseph of Nazareth , which initially stood in Butzbach in the St. Mary's altar in St. Joseph's Church, until a more suitable figure of a saint was purchased.

On the left of the triumphal arch there is a wooden figure of Mary on a small pedestal, on the right a more recent figure of Joseph in the same style, which holds a square as an attribute . In 1985 the church received this new figure of Joseph from a workshop in Oberammergau to match the Madonna. The older colored Joseph figure has been in the parish hall since then. On the right back on the wall is a copy of the Klattau Madonna , donated by a Sudeten German Lang-Gönser family. The original miraculous image is located in the parish church of the Virgin Mary in Klatovy (formerly Klattau, West Bohemia, now the Czech Republic). On July 8, 1685, a blood miracle was repeated in Klattau , which had originally occurred on April 29, 1494 at the Madonna of Re , in Piedmont, northern Italy. In 2015 a display case with a pre-concillian priestly robe was placed in the far right corner.

In 2004 the interior of the church was extensively renovated. The wall behind the crucifix was designed to create an “overall picture of the Trinity” “with special consideration of the symbolic power of the colors”. The realistic depiction of the crucifix is ​​combined with abstract forms that depict God the Father in “inaccessible light” and the “Holy Spirit that cannot be grasped by the human senses” (Simonsen, Laubach). The chancel was also rearranged. The base of the paten ( tabernacle ), lectern ( ambo ), altar and baptismal font were carved from unobtrusive light gray limestone from Fontainebleau (Heuser, Reiskirchen). An Easter candlestick , a baptismal font, a lecture cross , a sacrificial candle stand and a holder for the eternal light were also purchased as unique items (Welling, Koblenz-Horchheim). Since the sacrificial candle stand was supposed to be in front of the figure of Mary again, but the new baptismal font in front of the figure of Joseph would have blocked the access from the chancel to the parish hall, the figure of Mary was moved to the left and the figure of Joseph to the right and the front bench on the right was removed to leave enough space for the baptismal font to have. Cardinal Karl Lehmann appeared on September 11, 2004 for the altar consecration and laid relics of St. Justinus, St. Virginia and St. Amelia in the altar. A gallery on which the organ is placed has moved in to the west. An electronic organ "F 212" from Ahlborn , acquired in 1974, was replaced in 2012 by a "Gloria 225" from Kisselbach. The wood-sighted church stalls are kept simple.

literature

  • Otto Berndt: Lang-Göns; Insights into the past , 219 p., Fernwald printing workshop, Langgöns 2013
  • Catholic Church Langgöns: History of our house of God , parish archives, leaflet on the 50th anniversary of the church, 2005
  • Manfred Lebisch: The Catholic St. Josefs Church in Langgöns, church guide for children , parish archive, sheet collection, 7 pages, approx. 2004
  • Peter Fleck, Dieter Wolf: Catholic life in Butzbach in the Middle Ages and modern times , commemorative publication for the 100th anniversary of the Catholic parish of Butzbach, on behalf of the Catholic parish of St. Gottfried, Butzbach 1994, pp. 117–126
  • Peter Weyrauch : The churches of the old district of Gießen , Mittelhessische Dr.- u. Verl.-Ges, Giessen 1979
  • Ludwig Hellriegel: 75 years of the Catholic parish of Butzbach, St. Joseph, St. Gottfried, 1894–1969, commemorative publication on the 75th anniversary of the founding of the Catholic parish of Butzbach and the 50th anniversary of the Catholic nurses' station in Butzbach , Catholic parish office of St. Gottfried, Butzbach 1969
  • Johann Bayer: On the history of the Lang-Göns community, Lang-Göns community, 1976
  • Philip Hofmann: Lang-Göns, a village book from Hüttenberg , Verlag der Gemeinde, Lang-Göns, 1955

Web links

Commons : St. Josef (Lang-Göns)  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Bayer: The time of the Merovingians and Carolingians , in: Zur Geschichte der Gemeinde Lang-Göns , p. 17
  2. ↑ Minst, Karl Josef [transl.]: Lorscher Codex (Volume 5), Certificate 3080, March 7, 779 - Reg. 1526. In: Heidelberg historical stocks - digital. Heidelberg University Library, p. 79 , accessed on May 11, 2016 .
  3. ^ Bayer: Kirche , in: Zur Geschichte der Gemeinde Lang-Göns , p. 64
  4. ^ Weyrauch: Langgöns , in: Die Kirchen des Altkreis Gießen , 1979, p. 104
  5. ^ W. Wahl: Die Kirche , in: Hofmann: Lang-Göns, a village book from the Hüttenberg , 1955, p. 171, p. 182
  6. ↑ Johann Arnd: Various miracle stories, so with Hn. Joh. Arnds sel. Paradieß-Gärtlein in the fire , In: Paradieß-Gärtlein full of Christian virtues, Frankfurt 1694
  7. ↑ Chr. Diemer: Johann Arndts Paradieß-Gärtlein , in: Hofmann: Lang-Göns, a village book from the Hüttenberg , 1955, pp. 343-345
  8. ↑ The "Paradise" in the archive - transfer of a copy of the "Paradiesgärtlein" by Johann Arndt from 1756 to the Langgöns community archive , in: Gießener Zeitung of December 23, 2011, accessed on December 19, 2014.
  9. ↑ Fleck: The submission to the church and school council from 1821 , in: Fleck: Catholic life in Butzbach in the Middle Ages and Modern Times , 1994, p. 71
  10. ↑ Fleck: The submission to the church and school council from 1821 , in: Fleck: Katholisches Leben in Butzbach in Mittelalter und Neuzeit , 1994, p. 72
  11. ^ Weyrauch: Gießen - First Catholic Church , in: Die Kirchen des Altkreises Gießen , 1979, p. 200
  12. ↑ Fleck: From your own church building to an independent parish curate , in: Fleck: Katholisches Leben in Butzbach in Mittelalter und Neuzeit , 1994, p. 97
  13. ^ Berndt: Lang-Göns; Insights into the past , p. 46
  14. ^ Artur Seidel: The Catholic Church in Lang-Göns , in: Hofmann: Lang-Göns, a village book from the Hüttenberg , 1955, p. 189
  15. ↑ Viktor Aschenbrenner: The new citizens in Lang-Göns , in: Hofmann: Lang-Göns, a village book from the Hüttenberg , 1955, pp. 246–249
  16. ↑ Butzbach, St. Gottfried , bistummainz.de, viewed March 21, 2013
  17. ↑ Fleck: Catholic integration of the expellees and renewed church building , in: Fleck: Katholisches Leben in Butzbach in Mittelalter und Neuzeit , 1994, p. 122
  18. ↑ ws: applicable to Pfarrkuratie , Giessen General, New Year 1968, p 21
  19. ↑ Heimatstube des Heimatkreis Bärn , Federal Institute for Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe
  20. ↑ Bärner Heimatstube , Langgöns community, accessed on March 26, 2018.
  21. ↑ Bärn home district
  22. ↑ wa: Christmas party for refugee children , Gießener Allgemeine, December 7, 1949, p. 7
  23. ↑ Bayer: Gasthäuser , in: On the history of the community Lang-Göns , p. 112
  24. ↑ Reinhard K. Puhl: Lang-Göns. Pictures from days gone by . Geiger, Horb am Neckar 1988, ISBN 3-89264-269-9 , p. 50
  25. ↑ Peter Weyrauch: Heimische Kirchen (101). From makeshift to building your own church. The development of the parish association of Großen-Linden , Gießener Allgemeine, June 16, 1978, p. 37
  26. ^ Weyrauch: Der Pfarrverband Großen-Linden , in: Die Kirchen des Altkreises Gießen , 1979, pp. 212-213
  27. ↑ Bayer: Kirche , in: Zur Geschichte der Gemeinde Lang-Göns , pp. 155–157
  28. ^ Chronicle of the DPSG Langgöns , German Scouting Society Sankt Georg, St. Josef Langgöns
  29. ↑ Hellriegel: 75 years Catholic parish Butzbach, St. Joseph, St. Gottfried, 1894–1969 , 1969, p. 66
  30. ↑ Hellriegel: 75 years Kath. Gemeinde Butzbach, St. Joseph, St. Gottfried, 1894–1969 , 1969, pp. 50–51, pp. 58–60
  31. ↑ Elfriede Grabner: In Gremio Matris Sapientia Patris sedet. On the iconography of an injured cult image , in: Mater Gratiarum: Marian cult images in the popular piety of the Eastern Alps , Böhlau Verlag Vienna, 2002, ISBN 978-3-205-77026-8 , pp. 33ff
  32. ↑ Alexander Hepp: Das Blutwunder in Klattau , in: Maria vom Blut: an injured image of grace from Italy is spreading in Central Europe , Fe-Medien, Kießlegg 2011, ISBN 978-3-86357-010-1 , pp. 50-68
  33. ↑ tw: Colored message from the triune God. After extensive church renovation, the altar is consecrated on Saturday in Langgöns , Faith and Life, September 12, 2004, March 21, 2013.
  34. ↑ ang: consecration of the altar. Cardinal Lehmann visiting Langgöns , Giessener Allgemeine, September 13, 2004, seen March 21, 2013.
  35. ^ Rieger: Catholic parish St. Josef Langgöns. New organ in St. Josef , Heimatblatt Langgöns, February 15, 2013, seen March 21, 2013.
  36. ↑ age: New organ sounds to the glory of God. Catholic parish Langgöns is happy about "Gloria" - Further sponsors wanted , Gießener Allgemeine Zeitung, Friday, March 8, 2013, seen March 21, 2013.

Coordinates: 50 ° 29 ′ 48.4 "  N , 8 ° 39 ′ 57.6"  E