St. Stephanus (forest)

St. Stephen, south side

St. Stephanus is an Evangelical Lutheran church in Forst ( Deanery Ansbach ) named after the martyr Stephanus .

Parish

In 1291 a parish of Forst was first mentioned in a document. The villages of Frankendorf and Petersdorf were probably originally looked after by St. Stephanus . The Würzburg bishops and the Lords of Vestenberg argued over the patronage right for decades. In 1303, Bishop Manegold of Neuchâtel transferred the supposed right to the dean and chapter of the Ansbach Gumbertus Foundation to enjoy the income of the parish and to employ an eternal vicar. In fact, however, members of the Vestenbergers provided the pastor's office, who could claim that they had rights and possessions in no small amount in the three places. In 1323 the disputes were settled by an arbitration tribunal in favor of the Gumbertus pen. But it is still documented for the year 1356 that - despite the planned care by the vicar - Forst had Hans Poksdorfer as pastor instead, who was presumably provided by the Vestenbergers.

After the turmoil of the Thirty Years War, Forst as well as St. Jakob (Weihenzell) and St. Johannes (Wernsbach near Ansbach) had to be supplied by the parish of Mitteldachstetten . Around 1650 it became a subsidiary of Weihenzell. From 1856, Forst was again an independent parish. The pastor in Weihenzell has taken care of her since 1974. In the early 1990s, the parish had 224 parishioners.

Church building

Most of the original church has been demolished. The core of the Gothic west tower with entrance hall made of ashlar comes from the 14th / 15th centuries. Century. It is two-story and ends with an octagonal pointed helmet. The margrave style hall building in the east was completed in 1756. In three axes, on the south and north sides, a rectangular window is arranged over an arched window. It is accessible through a south portal. In the east there is a drawn-in sacristy building.

The hall has a single nave and is flat. In 1898 the ceiling was decorated with stucco. The two-storey gallery adjoins the south, east and north walls in a horseshoe shape. Like the pulpit altar, the organ on the second gallery stands in the middle in the east. The baptismal font is on the same line in front of the pulpit altar. A special feature is the baroque organ, many of which are still original. The church offers seats for 250 visitors and was therefore oversized for the small parish from the start.

literature

• Günther P. Fehring : City and district of Ansbach (=  Bavarian art monuments . Volume 2 ). Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1958, DNB  451224701 , p. 94-95 .
• Manfred Jehle: Church conditions and religious institutions on the upper Altmühl, Rezat and Bibert: Monasteries, parishes and Jewish communities in the Altlandkreis Ansbach in the Middle Ages and in modern times (=  Middle Franconian Studies . Volume 20 ). Historical Association for Middle Franconia, Ansbach 2009, ISBN 978-3-87707-771-9 , p. 297-300 .
• 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. 154-161 .

Web links

• Forst on the website kirchengemeinden-weihenzell-wernsbach-forst.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ M. Jehle, pp. 297-299.
2. ↑ M. Jehle, p. 295.
3. ↑ ^{a b} H. Sommer (Ed.), P. 161.
4. ↑ GP Fehring, p. 94f.

Coordinates: 49 ° 20 ′ 55.9 ″  N , 10 ° 39 ′ 48.4 ″  E