St. Peter and Paul (Neukirchen near Ansbach)

St. Peter and Paul, south side

inside view

Church organ

Baptismal font made of wood

St. Peter and Paul is an Evangelical Lutheran church in Neukirchen ( Deanery Ansbach ) named after the apostles Peter and Paul .

Parish

The church was built in the 14th century - probably by the Lords of Vestenberg . Their original patronage was to the apostles Simon and Jude , later on to Peter and Paul. The reason for this change is unknown. It was a branch of St. Alban (Saxony near Ansbach) . The chaplain read Mass weekly in St. Peter and Paul. Three services were held annually: on October 28th at Simon and Judae, on the Sunday before St. Margarethen (July 13th) and on Ascension Day . In addition, there was a hail holiday with a ride across the hall in summer.

To maintain the church and finance the clergy, there was a church property that was administered by two caretakers of the saints. The income consisted of the yield from meadows, forests and sheep farming, interest that was collected through money lending, offerings and beekeeping, through which the wax for the candles was obtained.

With the arrival of the Reformation, church services were held weekly in St. Peter and Paul. How long this was the case cannot be said. The next news comes from 1660. The church was badly damaged by the Thirty Years War . In 1673 and 1682 it was renewed. The priest of Saxony held a prayer hour every two weeks on Thursday. Here, too, it cannot be said whether this tradition was permanent. Further new purchases of bells and clockworks followed, and lightning strikes made repairs to the tower and roof necessary. At that time there was only one service on the Sunday after the Visitation of the Virgin Mary (July 2nd), which was the consecration Sunday of St. Peter and Paul.

On May 31, 1813 the merger of the Neukirchen branch church foundation with the main church foundation in Saxony was ordered and St. Peter and Paul were demolished. However, because the high-altitude tower, which was visible from afar, could be used for land surveying, the church was allowed to remain standing. However, it was not maintained and was not used for worship. In 1929 it was renovated and rededicated on July 7th by the Oberkirchenrat Rüdel. Kirchweihtag is now the Sunday after Peter and Paul .

In 1946 the tower had to be torn down because it posed a threat to the flight operations of the nearby Katterbach airfield , which was used by the United States Army after the war . A new tower could be rebuilt in 1955. In this is the clock of the old tower, which was manufactured in 1921 by the Lorenz Förster company in Nuremberg. In 1946 it was informally agreed that the Catholic residents of Saxony could hold services in the church, which was finally contractually agreed on July 23, 1949.

At present, early morning services are held at regular intervals during the summer months.

Church building

The Gothic hall structure dates from the 14th century and is 13 meters long, 11 meters wide and 12 meters high. On the southern long wall it has three pointed arch windows with sloping walls and a grooved pointed arch portal. It originally had a tower in the west as a roof turret. It was badly damaged by the Thirty Years War and had to be renovated in 1673 and 1682. Lightning strikes made further repair work necessary. At the end of the 18th century, a gallery was built on the north and west side, which rests on Tuscan wooden columns. The interior is modern and dates from 1929 when the church had to be renovated again. The flat-roofed hall has a single nave. On the east wall is the high altar in front of a modern painting of the risen Christ. In the southeast corner there is a wooden pulpit, in the northeast corner a baptismal font, also made of wood. A five-registered positive from the Steinmeyer company (Opus 2085) from 1964 serves as the organ . The original pulpit was expanded when the church was closed in 1813 and used for the St. Albanskirche in Saxony.

literature

• Hermann Dallhammer: Saxony b. Ansbach: a chronicle . Ansbach 1999, ISBN 3-00-005060-4 , p. 213-215 .
• Günther P. Fehring : City and district of Ansbach (=  Bavarian art monuments . Volume 2 ). Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1958, DNB  451224701 , p. 129 .
• Georg Rusam: History of the parish of Saxony and the associated places . C. Brügel & Sohn, Ansbach 1940, DNB  575937491 , p. 74–76, 212–218 ( digitized from WikiCommons [PDF]).
• Hans Sommer with e. Working group d. Dean's office (ed.): It happened in the name of faith: Protestant in the Ansbach deanery (=  series of portraits of Bavarian deanery districts ). Verlag der Evangelisch-Lutherischen Mission, Erlangen 1991, ISBN 3-87214-248-8 , p. 131 .

Web links

Commons : Saints Peter and Paul  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: The church in Neukirchen , in: Georg Rusam: History of the parish of Saxony near Ansbach and the associated places  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

1. ↑ G. Rusam, pp. 74ff.
2. ↑ G. Rusam, p. 212ff.
3. ↑ H. Dallhammer, p. 215.
4. ↑ H. Dallhammer, pp. 249f.
5. ↑ H. Sommer, p. 131.
6. ^ GP Fehring, p. 129.
7. ↑ H. Sommer (Ed.), P. 131.

Coordinates: 49 ° 18 ′ 34.1 ″  N , 10 ° 39 ′ 17.1 ″  E