City Church Erbach (Odenwald)
The Stadtkirche Erbach is the Protestant church in Erbach in the Odenwald. It is one of the very rare transverse churches in the southern Hesse region and was built as a new building in the middle of the 18th century. After Dehio , the church is the most important Protestant church in southern Hesse. The church belongs to the Deanery Odenwald in the Evangelical Church in Hesse and Nassau .
Building history
Today's church was built on the basis of a once Gothic chapel and previously an Erbach castle man's seat. The seat of the Knights of Eicholzheim was located here, to the north of the former Erbach Castle and already bordering the Mümling at that time . In 1370, Schenk Eberhard VIII and his wife donated a chapel on this property at the express request of the town's Erbach residents at the time . Until then there was only one chapel in the castle. The chapel was established in the tower of the Burgmannensitz on the ground floor, which is still in use today and is still used by the church. The document says: Eberhard Schenk Herre zu Erbach and Elisabethe his married landlady donate a chapel in the city and dedicate a priest to sing about the chapel. The original patronage was held by Saints Sebastian and Bartholomew . The chapel initially remained a branch church of the neighboring town church Michelstadt . It was not until 1497 that the chapel, an independent Erbach parish church, and Michelstadt was dissolved at the request of Schenk Erasmus von Erbach . Around the same time, the old Erbacher Friedhof was laid out in the Brudergrund together with the chapel Zur Not Gottes . In the meantime from 1526 until the final introduction of the Reformation in the county of Erbach in 1544, there were probably difficulties between the denominations. We know of an incident on Christmas Eve, December 24th, 1533, after which the two priests fought in front of the altar: and for the sake of his wickedness and lies, gave the worthless priest a blow on his mouth with his fist . Alterations and renovations of this church are known from the 16th century. However, over the centuries the church became too small and dilapidated, which is why Count Georg Wilhelm zu Erbach-Erbach decided in 1747 to commission a completely new building. The master builder was Andreas Jörg . The foundation stone was laid on August 8, 1747, and the old building stock - with the exception of the defensive tower mentioned on the east side - was demolished by November 18, 1747. The nave was completed on November 13, 1748, the tower by September 12, 1749. The new church was consecrated on July 12, 1750.
Exterior
According to its floor plan, the church has three entrances from the west side. The middle part of the west facade is clearly protruding in the form of a central projectile. The measure serves to compensate for the protrusion on the east side, i.e. the plan of the former defense tower there. The Erbach coat of arms is located above the main portal, the side pilasters of which are bent and whose architrave is consequently cranked. The north side portal contains the heraldic cartouche of the Counts von Bothmer in the middle field between volutes , the first wife of the builder came from this family. The coat of arms of the southern portal indicates the origin of the builder's second wife, it is that of the Wild and Rhine Counts .
On the south side the tower rises with a height of 48 meters and 131 steps inside. The bossetting of the building edges was not actually done in sandstone, but only painted. It is similar with the clock floor of the tower. It is not bricked, as the outer facade suggests, but consists of plastered wood with the construction behind it, which supports the bell shape of the tower roof. This shape is a deviation from the original plan, which provided a perfect onion shape for the tower roof.
The church is covered by a gable roof, which is hipped briefly on the outside.
Interior
The orientation of the property did not allow an orientation of the nave to the east, which was actually liturgical, insofar as the length of the property extends from north to south. Therefore - and also for theological reasons - the room was laid out across the west-east axis as a transverse church , as the "ideal form" of Protestant church building. The building is a single-nave hall church . In keeping with the design type of a Protestant preacher's church, it is kept very simple, the most remarkable are the two-storey galleries on the three sides north, west and south resting on 12 columns clad with stucco marble according to the Tuscan order . The west side contains the two-story manor's box, glazed on the front side. The lower floor, known as the “Count's Chair”, on which the count's family attended the service, is a little deeper than the other first galleries, at eye level with the pulpit opposite. The upper floor of the manor's box was reserved for the higher count's servants as the “official's chair”. In the old days of use, the pews on the ground floor were reserved for women, men had to go to the galleries. The room is covered by a simple cove ceiling . Its dimensions are 12.3 meters in east-west width and 30 meters in north-south length. The church has space for around 1,400 people.
Furnishing
The altar pulpit and baptismal font are made of Lahn marble and all date from the time the church was built in the middle of the 18th century. The Erbach coat of arms is repeated on the front of the altar, which is designed as a sarcophagus based on a classic Baroque shape, as is the uppermost, blown segmented arch gable of the organ front . The latter is a work by the Aschaffenburg sculptor Manuel Millet from 1724 and was adopted when the church was rebuilt. The richly carved ornamentation of the organ front is considered to be of "excellent quality". The pulpit in turn shows the transition to the Rococo . It comes from the Heidelberg sculptor Lutz. The baptismal font in the middle of the room dates from 1750. The church has another sandstone baptismal font on the north side, but opinions differ considerably about its age. According to one opinion, it should still come from the late Gothic period and would thus be the only surviving sacred piece from the previous church, according to another opinion it is much younger and should not be a foundation of the Count's House until 1868. At the front of the mansion box is a figure of Christ carved from ivory . It is a work by the Erbach ivory carver Otto Glenz from 1940. The stained glass windows of the church are donations from various citizens, a pastor and the count's house. These windows date from 1898 and were commissioned on the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the congregation in 1897. They were made in the Heinrich Beiler glass painting workshop in Heidelberg.
organ
Today's organ with 19 registers on two manuals (C-f '' ') and pedal (C-d') was built in 1899 as op. 793 by the organ builder Wilhelm Sauer from Frankfurt / Oder . Sauer built the instrument with a pneumatic action into the prospectus of the previous instrument from 1725, which still came from the previous church. A two-octave carillon has also been adopted from the previous organ. The prospect pipes delivered in the First World War were replaced by the Sauer organ building workshop in 1919 and the original organ motor was replaced. Except for these changes, the instrument is one of the few organs by Wilhelm Sauer that is still practically in its original condition.
Peal
The bell of the church consists of four bells, which are coordinated with the " Salve Regina motif":
- "Elfuhr bell", cast as early as 1357 and brought to Erbach from Schönau Monastery in 1563, tone f sharp '. The bell weighs 22 quintals.
- "Our Father Bell" from 1513, cast in 1850, tone a ', weight 8 quintals.
- "Memorial bell", cast in 1950, key of d ', it is the heaviest bell of the peal with a weight of 32 quintals.
- "Eberhardsglocke", also cast in 1950, tone h ', it weighs 6 quintals.
literature
- Frank Schmidt: Ev.-Luth. City church Erbach / Odenwald. Schnell Art Guide No. 2123, Small Art Guide series , founded by Dr. Hugo Schnell and Dr. Johannes Steiner, 1st edition, Verlag Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1994.
- Paul Wagenknecht: Erbach - 900 years - castle and town. Seeger-Druck, Michelstadt 1995.
- Wolfram Becher: Michelstadt and Erbach - two romantic cities in the Odenwald. Hermann Emig, Amorbach 1980.
- Evangelical Church Community Erbach (Ed.): Evangelical City Church Erbach - Church Chronicle. eight-page information leaflet, Erbach o. J.
- Evangelical Church Community Erbach (Ed.): 100 Years of the Sauer Organ Ev. City church Erbach / Odw. CD booklet, 1999.
Web links
- State Office for Monument Preservation Hessen (Ed.): Evangelical City Church In: DenkXweb, online edition of cultural monuments in Hessen
- Website of the Protestant parish Erbach
Individual evidence
- ↑ Website of the Deanery Odenwald, profile of the parish Erbach , accessed on April 12, 2015.
- ↑ Becher: Michelstadt and Erbach - two romantic cities in the Odenwald. P. 151.
- ^ Wagenknecht: Erbach - 900 years - Burg und Stadt , pp. 95/96.
- ↑ Becher: Michelstadt and Erbach - two romantic cities in the Odenwald , p. 151.
- ↑ Becher mentions 1496 against all others.
- ^ Wagenknecht: Erbach - 900 Years - Burg und Stadt , p. 97.
- ^ Schmidt: Ev.-Luth. City church Erbach / Odenwald , p. 2.
- ↑ Kathrin Ellwardt: Church building between evangelical ideals and absolutist rule. The cross churches in the Hessian area from the Reformation century to the Seven Years War . Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2004, ISBN 3-937251-34-0
- ↑ Evangelical Church Community Erbach (ed.): Evangelical City Church Erbach - Church Chronicle , p. 2.
- ^ Schmidt: Ev.-Luth. City church Erbach / Odenwald , p. 12.
- ^ Schmidt: Ev.-Luth. City church Erbach / Odenwald , p. 8.
- ↑ All information according to: Evangelische Kirchengemeinde Erbach (ed.): Evangelische Stadtkirche Erbach - Kirchenchronik , p. 3.
Coordinates: 49 ° 39 ′ 28.6 " N , 8 ° 59 ′ 33.9" E