City Church of Giessen

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City church tower in 2005

The town church is a former church in Gießen , of which the steeple has been preserved after it was destroyed in World War II . The free-standing bell tower is the oldest building in the city center and is a landmark of the city of Giessen. The Hessian cultural monument from the Gothic period is 50.70 meters high and shapes the cityscape.

history

View of Gießen from 1623: City tower with old dome and Gothic church with roof turret
City church tower with Renaissance dome after Merian (1646/1655)

In the 12./13. In the 19th century, a "chapel", as it was called back then, was built in the area of ​​today's church square. It was first mentioned in a document in 1248 and was consecrated to St. Pancras and Mary . The Pankratius Chapel was a branch of the older St. Peter's Church in the village of Selters, which stood on the Seltersberg outside Gießen. Since the end of the 15th century, Selters was abandoned by its inhabitants and is considered a desert. The building initially served the lords and men of the castle as a castle chapel. When the Hessian landgrave acquired the city in 1265, the chapel received its own pleban and became the city church; A cemetery is documented in 1285.

The chapel was probably replaced in two construction phases in the 14th century by a Gothic church, which in 1334 is referred to for the first time as the “parish church” (“parochialis ecclesia”). At the same time it was called the “City Church” and, in continuity with the previous building, the “Pankratius Chapel”, especially since it was also consecrated to Pankratius. The adjacent square to the north was already built on before the church was built, so that the cemetery is assumed to be south of the church. From 1484 to 1520, in a third construction phase, the church tower - also in Gothic style - was built over the moat of the Giessen moated castle built in 1152 , as excavations in the 1980s revealed. The single-storey dome, which was completed around 1520 over the ten-sided residential floor, was kept in the Renaissance style and had a wreath of small triangular gables. It is considered to be one of the earliest examples of a Welsche hood . The town church was built as a Catholic church. With the introduction of the Reformation by Philip the Magnanimous in 1527, the city changed to the Protestant creed and the city church became the meeting place for the Protestant community (based on the principle of Cuius regio, eius religio ). The first Lutheran pastor was Daniel Greser (* December 6, 1504; † September 29, 1591) from 1532 to 1542. At this point in time the church was already too small for the "growing population". St. Peter in Selters was laid down in the course of the fortress construction 1530–1533 and the expansion of the city of Gießen. Until the completion of the castle church in 1658, the converted university ballroom, which had been used for church services since 1645, the Pankratiuskirche was henceforth the only church in Giessen.

The installation of two galleries ("Bohrlauben") in 1580 created additional seats in the church. After the city had grown and the founding of the University of Giessen led to a further increase in the number of people attending services, the church had to be enlarged or rebuilt. After several submissions to Landgrave Ludwig V , in a fourth construction phase from 1613 to 1622 the main nave was extended in a northerly direction and a connection to the tower was created. Around 1625, the organ builder Georg Wagner from Lich probably built an organ with a manual and pedal. In 1675/1676 a new organ gallery was installed. The temporary relocation of the University of Gießen to Marburg (1624 to 1649) and the plague year 1635 led to a temporary decline in population, so that the new building plans were abandoned. A fifth construction phase with reconstructions of the church followed in 1657/1658, when the old choir was torn down and the church was enlarged, galleries were built in and a sacristy was added, and in 1675/1676. In 1699 the tower dome gave way to a baroque octagonal helmet with three storeys. Here was a now square residential floor with a small tower guard's apartment with three rooms and a kitchen for the tower guard . There was such a tower keeper in Gießen until 1910. In 1714, the sovereign approved two lotteries for the new building or the extension of the church that was now being lost. Apparently the lotteries were unsuccessful. The plans did not come to fruition; only the church tower was repaired in 1715. The princely master builder Johann Helfrich Müller came to the judgment in 1785 that the church was “of a miserable condition” and that “the church should be rebuilt rather than repaired”. When the church building increasingly needed renovation, it was finally abandoned in May 1808 except for the tower. On August 10, 1808, the ministry approved a new building. The old town church was demolished in 1809.

Design of the new Giessen town church by FL Sonnemann (1808)

The Gießen master builder Friedrich Sonnemann, together with his son, the building manager Friedrich Ludwig Sonnemann, developed plans for a new town church in 1808. The foundation work began in 1810. When there were disputes, the Grand Duke had his architect Georg Moller from Darmstadt draft new plans. Changing plans, controversies, tough negotiations and a long financial weakness delayed further construction. Eventually a compromise was made and the church was built in the classicism style between 1810 and 1821 . The inauguration took place on July 29, 1821. Instead of the estimated costs of 60,000 guilders, 120,000 guilders were ultimately required. The church tower was kept unchanged. The organ of the castle church, built around 1780, which had 22 registers on two manuals and a pedal and is attributed to Johann Andreas Heinemann , was taken over for the new building  . It was replaced in 1887 by a larger instrument by Friedrich Weigle (36 parts and three manuals), which was rebuilt and expanded in 1907.

The new city church was not very popular with the people of Giessen, so Hugo von Ritgen began developing plans for renovation as early as 1861, but these were not carried out. On November 1, 1892, the Protestant township was divided into four independent parishes, each with its own pastor. The names of the new congregations were given by the four evangelists . The St. Matthew and St. Mark congregations used the town church, the St. Luke and St. John church the St. John's Church, built in 1893 . In 1897 the town church was rebuilt, in which larger windows were broken in and decorated with stained glass, the upper galleries were removed and the interior and exterior were redesigned. The church reopened on January 30, 1898. After the obligation to build the tower and nave had been with the city since at least the beginning of the 17th century and the church had to bear construction and maintenance costs for the choir, the tower was transferred to the parish in 1885 and became their property. The city was obliged to maintain the tower keeper's apartment until 1910 and this year, after two years of disputes, it paid a replacement of its previous maintenance obligations in the amount of 8,000 marks, but retained the right to share the bells.

Pankratius Chapel from 1949

The town church was completely destroyed in the bombing raid on Gießen on December 6, 1944 . The city church tower also burned out and lost its helmet structure. As a result, the tower without a helmet was to serve as a memorial and remained without construction until the end of the 1970s. Only individuals tried to rebuild the church, such as church builder Karl Gruber . The construction police blew up the remains of the wall in 1947. In 1949, the rubble was cleared away free of charge by a construction company who, in return, was allowed to keep the materials.

The rubble of the city church was used to build an emergency church for the Protestant St. Matthew and St. Mark congregations who had lost their place of worship. Today's Pankratius chapel was not built on the old site, but 80 meters west of the campanile , as many hoped that the old church would be rebuilt later. Exactly one year after the first foundation work, the chapel was consecrated on November 1st, 1949. The church architect Otto Bartning , together with the Swiss Staudacher, developed the concept of a wooden structure on which the roof rests. The spaces in between were filled with masonry, which, like the foundations, largely consisted of stones from the destroyed town church.

Altar area of ​​the Michaeliskapelle

There were different opinions about the further use of the church tower. Dean Karl Schmidt suggested the construction of a memorial chapel in the bell tower. The contract was awarded to the Hamburg architect Gerhard Langmaack , who carried out the renovation of the lower tower floor in 1952. The walls below the windows in the north and south were removed, an organ was installed in the northern niche and three memorial books for the victims of the bombing were laid out in the southern niche. On December 6, 1952, the baptistery and memorial chapel in the tower was inaugurated ("Michaeliskapelle"). The area of ​​the city church on the church square was converted into a green area in 1954. Today stone lines from Lungstein indicate the ground plan of the former church.

In 1979 the destroyed tower dome was reconstructed in the baroque form of 1699. The topping-out ceremony took place on July 11th. A year later the outer facade of the tower was plastered and painted. An extensive renovation was carried out inside from 1986. In 2002, the staircase leading to the tower house was renovated.

The Giessen parishes Markus and Matthäus merged at the end of 2003 to form the Evangelical Pankratius parish. In 2004 all of the four-bell bells were renewed. In the spring of 2008, the clapper of the largest bell broke, resulting in a legal dispute. In 2010 another clapper broke. The bell was restored in the same year. In 2009, the tower was comprehensively renovated for 250,000 euros, damaged exterior plaster was repaired and the entire tower shaft was repainted.

Building description

Pankratiuskirche

Gothic town church before 1809

The first chapel from the 12th / 13th centuries Century with its west portal was about 50 meters from the castle wall and 25 to 30 meters from the moat and the outer gate. The interior on a rectangular floor plan was only about 8.50 × 9.00 meters, a triumphal arch opened the approximately 3.50 × 5.00 meters large rectangular choir to the nave. The easted successor building from the 14th century was designed with at least two aisles from the start, as archaeological excavations in 2014 have shown. It was 38 meters long and 14 meters wide. The Gothic hall church had a narrow north aisle that connected the tower and church in the northwest. In the northeast corner, parts of the old chapel with a rectangular east end were included. The southern main nave had six rectangular cross vaults and was designed with two choirs, with five-eighth endings in the east and west and a steep gable roof . The double-choir system has no parallel in Hesse at the time of the late Gothic. Pointed arch windows illuminated the interior. After various renovations, the church presented itself in the east with a straight east end and a hipped roof as well as buttresses and pointed arched windows on the long sides. A small attached roof turret appears in a view from 1623, but no longer in Merian (1646/1655).

City church in 1904

The classicist church from 1821 was in the same place, but was rotated by about 90 degrees compared to the previous Gothic building. The ship with a flat gable roof was oriented lengthways in a north-south direction. Each side was designed strictly symmetrical. A circumferential cornice divided the outer walls into two zones, the lower of which had a cuboid over a protruding base, while the upper zone was smoothly plastered. The upper end was formed by a characteristic frieze of anthemias . The east side was emphasized by a wide central projectile with a flat triangular gable as a front ( frontispiece ). Through this central wing, the church appeared from the outside as a transverse building, but was oriented lengthways inside. Axial arched portals, flanked by columns, opened up the building from every side. A large round window was attached to each side above the architrave with a triangular gable. In the upper zone on the risalit and on the façade of the rear position, high arched windows were let in after the renovation in 1897, which corresponded with small rectangular windows in the lower zone. The longitudinally oriented interior was closed off by a semicircular wooden barrel. It is reminiscent of the Evangelical City Church in Karlsruhe , which was built according to plans by Friedrich Weinbrenner , Moller's teacher. The altar area, which was raised by a few steps and had an axially positioned pulpit, was on the northern narrow side, the organ gallery in the south. The pews faced north and left a central aisle through the whole church from the south portal. The two-zone outer system corresponded to the three-sided gallery inside. It rested on fluted Doric columns that were continued above the galleries to support the ceiling. The Pankratiuskirche offered space for 1000 visitors.

Steeple

City church tower in the city center
Gothic west portal

The city church tower reaches a height of 50.70 meters and has 2.25 meter thick walls on the ground floor on a square floor plan. In the lower area, it consists of a solidly bricked up and plastered tower shaft with corner blocks totaling 32 meters high, which is divided into three floors of equal height by protruding cornices . The first two floors do not have a false ceiling inside. The first floor has two large pointed arch windows without tracery , the middle floor has no windows. The upper floor serves as a bell cage and has an ogival sound opening on each side. On the north east side, a narrow stone stair tower with a spiral staircase enables the ascent to the top of the second floor of the tower shaft. The further ascent takes place inside via steel stairs. Small slit windows illuminate the stair tower, which is closed off by a tent roof. A pointed arched portal is let into the western side of the tower.

In the basement, the flat-pointed arched, former passage to the nave is walled up on the east side. In the baptistery, wedding and memorial chapel ( Michaeliskapelle ) established in 1952, a "tower prayer" takes place regularly. The cup-shaped baptismal font (diameter: 1.03 meters, height: 0.72 meters) from Lungstein comes from the Romanesque period and was originally installed in St. Peter's Church on Seltersberg, which was demolished in 1530, before it was transferred to the town church. It then stood in the parish garden unused for decades. Eight fields have two horseshoe arches each. The church painter Rudolf Fuchs from Diez created the painting on the eastern altar wall, which shows the Archangel Michael , and the templates for the stained glass windows. The altar is made of a massive cube with a simple, protruding canteen . The windows from 1955 and 1956 show angels with the scenes of birth and resurrection. The Lich company Förster & Nicolaus built a small organ positive with free pipes brochure , which has four registers on one manual:

I Manual C–
Wooden dacked 8th'
Reed flute 4 ′
Principal 2 ′
Sharp II – III

With the help of donations from citizens of Giessen, the reconstruction of the three-storey tower structure was completed in 1979. The wooden, slated helmet is designed in the style of Hessian village churches. A cube-shaped floor has a walkway (corresponding to the earlier guards' walk in the tower house) that provides a view of the city. In the octagonal middle floor, arched windows and the gilded clock faces of the tower clock alternate. A curved roof forms the transition to the octagonal lantern with arched openings. The Welsche Haube is crowned by a tower knob, a wrought-iron cross and a gilded weather vane. The weather vane shows the city coat of arms of Gießen: a striding, crowned lion holding a "G" (for Gießen) in its paws.

Peal

Six o'clock ringing of the city church tower in Giessen

The porter's bell from 1371 was cast in 1719 by Johann Andreas and Heinrich Baltzer Henschel in Gießen. In 1853 it was re-cast by Philipp Rincker , who in the same year re-cast a Our Father 's Bell, an Annen Bell from 1481 and a bell made by Johann Philipp Henschel in 1739. A large bell with the name "Mathilde" from 1473 was cast in 1853 by Philipp Rincker. It sounds on the note a 0 and is the only one to survive the two world wars. The four bells created in 1853 were dedicated to Mathilde, Elisabeth, Maria and Anna. Andreas Hamm from Frankenthal built the belfry in 1883. A bronze plaque on the belfry bears the inscription: "C bell and all iron constructions designed and executed by the machine factory, bell and iron foundry Andreas Hamm Frankenthal in 1883." During the First World War, the smallest bell had to be sold for armament purposes and was melted down. It was replaced by Friedrich Wilhelm Rincker in 1927. The three largest bells were delivered during the Second World War. A bell (g 0 ) from Hamm (1883) is missing and was probably a victim of the war. “Mathilde” was the only Gießen bell to return. Due to the damage to the city church tower, it was not hung there again after the Second World War. In 1955, Friedrich Wilhelm Rincker (1927) gave the large bell together with the small, not confiscated bell (e 1 ) to the Johanneskirche. This year, the tower received four new from Bochum club cast of cast steel bells . Three bell cranked with upper weights and counterweight clappers, due to static problems only the smallest is free-swinging. The tone combination of the four bells is called the "ideal quartet". The largest bell serves as a church service bell, the second for midday prayer at 12 noon, the third for morning and evening prayers and the smallest as the Our Father bell.

No.
 
Casting year
 
Foundry, casting location
 
Weight
(kg)
Percussive
( HT - 1 / 16 )
inscription
 
image
 
1 1955 Bochum Association , Bochum 2200 h 0 " Soli Deo gloria " [Glory to God alone]
Giessen town church bell 1 (03) .jpg
2 1955 Bochum Association, Bochum 1250 d 1 " Da pacem Domine " [Lord, give us peace]
Giessen town church bell 2 (02) .jpg
3 1955 Bochum Association, Bochum 930 e 1 " Jesus Christ nostra salus " [Jesus Christ our salvation]
Giessen town church bell 3 (02) .jpg
4th 1955 Bochum Association, Bochum 520 g 1 " Veni sancte Spiritus " [Come, Holy Spirit]
Giessen town church bell 4 (01) .jpg

literature

  • Franz Bösken, Hermann Fischer : Sources and research on the organ history of the Middle Rhine (=  contributions to the Middle Rhine music history . Volume 29.1 ). tape 3 : Former province of Upper Hesse. Part 1: A-L . Schott, Mainz 1988, ISBN 3-7957-1330-7 , p. 375-383 .
  • Georg Dehio : Handbook of German art monuments , Hessen I: Administrative districts of Giessen and Kassel. Edited by Folkhard Cremer, Tobias Michael Wolf and others. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-422-03092-3 , p. 315.
  • Wilhelm Diehl : Construction book for the Protestant parishes of the Landgraviate of Hessen-Darmstadt (= Hassia sacra. Volume 5). Self-published, Darmstadt 1931, pp. 215–220.
  • Karl Dienst : Gießen - Upper Hesse - Hesse. Contributions to Protestant church history. Publishing house of the Hessian Church History Association, Darmstadt 2010.
  • Dagmar Klein: The Pankratius Chapel in Giessen. From the castle chapel to the Bartning church 1248–2009. Self-published, Giessen 2009.
  • State Office for the Preservation of Monuments Hesse (ed.), Karlheinz Lang (edit.): Cultural monuments in Hesse. University town of Giessen (= monument topography Federal Republic of Germany ). Verlagsgesellschaft Vieweg & Sohn, Braunschweig, Wiesbaden 1993, ISBN 3-528-06246-0 , p. 67.
  • Karlheinz Lang: On the building history of the town church in Gießen. In: Communications of the Upper Hessian History Association. Vol. 73, 1988, pp. 189-206.
  • Michael Przibilla: The old bell tower still holds up today. In: Gießener Anzeiger of November 24, 2001, p. 56.
  • Peter W. Sattler, Hermann Klehn: The city church tower. The landmark of Giessen. As often as the bells sound ... Geiger-Verlag, Horb am Neckar 1992, ISBN 3-89264-759-3 .
  • Heinrich Walbe : The art monuments of the Gießen district. Vol. 1. Northern part. Hessisches Denkmalarchiv, Darmstadt 1938, pp. 130–136.
  • Peter Weyrauch : The churches of the old district of Giessen. Mittelhessische Druck- und Verlagsgesellschaft, Giessen 1979, pp. 54–55.

Web links

Commons : Stadtkirche (Gießen)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d State Office for Monument Preservation Hesse (ed.): Stadtkirche / Stadtkirchenturm In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hesse , accessed on April 17, 2020.
  2. Przibilla: The old bell tower holds its own until today. 2001, p. 56.
  3. ^ Lang: On the building history of the town church in Gießen. 1988, p. 191.
  4. a b casting. Historical local dictionary for Hessen. In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS). Hessian State Office for Historical Cultural Studies (HLGL), accessed on April 17, 2020 . .
  5. a b Gießener Allgemeine from November 4, 2014: Castle complex was larger than expected .
  6. Walbe: The art monuments of the district of Giessen. 1938, p. 133.
  7. ^ Diehl: Construction book for the Protestant parishes. 1931, p. 216.
  8. ^ Peter W. Sattler, Hermann Klehn: Gießen. Turbulent times. Sutton, Erfurt 1998, ISBN 978-3-89702-050-4 , p. 121.
  9. ^ Bösken, Fischer: Sources and research on the organ history of the Middle Rhine. Vol. 3, 1988, p. 378.
  10. ^ Bösken, Fischer: Sources and research on the organ history of the Middle Rhine. Vol. 3, 1988, p. 376.
  11. ^ Diehl: Construction book for the Protestant parishes. 1931, p. 217.
  12. Sattler, Klehn: The city church tower. 1992, p. 18.
  13. ^ Diehl: Construction book for the Protestant parishes. 1931, p. 218.
  14. ^ Lang: On the building history of the town church in Gießen. 1988, p. 192.
  15. ^ Diehl: Construction book for the Protestant parishes. 1931, p. 219.
  16. ^ Bösken, Fischer: Sources and research on the organ history of the Middle Rhine. Vol. 3, 1988, p. 380 f.
  17. ^ Lang: On the building history of the town church in Gießen. 1988, pp. 197-198.
  18. Sattler, Klehn: The city church tower. 1992, p. 36.
  19. giessen-evangelisch.de: Lukasgemeinde , accessed on April 17, 2020.
  20. Klein: The Pankratius Chapel in Giessen. 2009, p. 16.
  21. ^ Diehl: Construction book for the Protestant parishes. 1931, p. 220.
  22. Sattler, Klehn: The city church tower. 1992, pp. 28-29.
  23. Klein: The Pankratius Chapel in Giessen. 2009, p. 18.
  24. a b c Gießener Allgemeine from December 27, 2012: Chapel in the city church tower inaugurated 60 years ago , accessed on April 17, 2020.
  25. ^ Karl Dienst : St. Pankratius as the keeper of continuity. In: Karl Dienst: Gießen - Upper Hesse - Hesse. Contributions to Protestant church history. Verlag der Hessische Kirchengeschichtliche Vereinigung, Darmstadt 2010, pp. 19–33, here: pp. 20–21.
  26. a b Gießener Zeitung of September 6, 2013: Building with history or legends - city church tower , accessed on April 17, 2020.
  27. ^ Dehio: Handbook of German Art Monuments. 2008, p. 315.
  28. Gießener Allgemeine from February 16, 2010: Second clapper broken in the city church tower , accessed on April 17, 2020.
  29. Gießener Allgemeine from December 9th, 2009: [again clear view of the city church tower ; again clear view of the city church tower ], accessed on April 17, 2020.
  30. a b Sattler, Klehn: The city church tower. 1992, p. 35.
  31. ^ Weyrauch: The churches of the old district Gießen. 1979, p. 54.
  32. Walbe: The art monuments of the district of Giessen. 1938, p. 131.
  33. ^ "View of the former town church in Gießen after a drawing in the Upper Hessian Museum in Gießen, undated". Historical town views, plans and floor plans. (As of March 19, 2007). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
  34. transit-giessen.de: Images of the neoclassical church , accessed on 17 April 2020th
  35. a b Weyrauch: The churches of the old district of Gießen. 1979, p. 55.
  36. Sattler, Klehn: The city church tower. 1992, p. 37.
  37. ^ Coat of arms of the city of Giessen , accessed on April 17, 2020.
  38. Walbe: The art monuments of the district of Giessen. 1938, p. 134.
  39. Sattler, Klehn: The city church tower. 1992, p. 30.
  40. Ulrike Fiensch: The Bells (PDF file; 944 kB), accessed on April 17, 2020.
  41. Sattler, Klehn: The city church tower. 1992, pp. 96-99.

Coordinates: 50 ° 35 ′ 13.3 "  N , 8 ° 40 ′ 27.5"  E