City Church of Göppingen

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Exterior view of the town church of Göppingen
Stadtkirche Göppingen, interior from south to north
City Church of Göppingen, interior from north to south

The town church of Göppingen is located in the middle of downtown Göppingen north of the main street and south of the castle . It is the main church of the Protestant church district of Göppingen of the Evangelical State Church in Württemberg , belongs to the city parish of Oberhofen (since 2019: Verbundkirchengemeinde Göppingen), is the largest Protestant Renaissance church in the German-speaking area and the easternmost station on the Heinrich-Schickhardt-Kulturstrasse of the Council of Europe . Today, in addition to central and special church services, it mainly hosts concerts, lectures, youth culture days in schools (school @ church) and exhibitions. In addition, the Evangelical Youth Office in Göppingen District regularly organizes the youth services “up” there. "Festive, somewhat celebratory and in a certain way even cheerful, these are the characteristics that give the interior of the Göppingen city church its character today."

history

Philipp Schickhart 1620: title page of three sermons (demolition of the chapel, laying of the foundation stone and inauguration of the town church of Göppingen)

Where the town church stands today, there were probably several previous buildings, most recently the Johanneskapelle, which was first mentioned in 1348 on the occasion of the foundation of a mass. After the Reformation was introduced in Göppingen in 1534, the Gothic rebuilt chapel was the only church building within the city to become the city church after the city fire of 1425, because some canons of the Oberhofen Abbey in front of the city (Gothic church from 1436) initially wanted the Catholic church Faith and hold fast to worship in their church.

Church building

After the discovery of the Göppingen mineral spring (first mentioned in a document in 1404, until 2020 in the Christophsbad one of the oldest companies in Germany), the growing importance of Göppingen as a spa and the subsequent construction of the Göppingen Castle, the small Johanneskapelle located in the town was no longer sufficient. Therefore, Duke Friedrich Karl commissioned the state master builder Heinrich Schickhardt to build a new church, which was publicly announced after years of preparatory work on the anniversary of the Reformation in 1617. Schickhardt had already converted the Badherberge in Göppingen into a comfortable Badhotel in 1610 , and was now supposed to erect a representative church building within the city wall for the Duke, his castle and bathers and of course the township - there should be enough comfort for "notables" and bathers be. The older Oberhofenkirche was outside.

The scarce building space at the castle only allowed a south-north orientation ( even under Catholicism in inner cities, easting was no longer compulsory, and certainly not in Protestant church construction), with the structure originally intended within the city wall facing west after construction began was enlarged by using the inner city wall as a western foundation. As a result, the church space itself and the secularly usable roof space were significantly enlarged. After the programmatic announcement of the centenary of the Reformation in 1617, the foundation stone was laid on February 13, 1618. An existing tower was included in the south-west corner of the church, which originally belonged to the city fortifications and later to the Johanneskapelle and in 1619 had to be raised above the new high roof. The financial means for the construction of this church were organized by the then special superintendent Philipp Schickhart , the builder's brother, pastor initially at Oberhofen, in cooperation with the pharmacist and mayor of Göppingen, Benedikt Mergenthaler the Elder. Ä. (1567-1640). The surrounding communities in the region were also burdened with construction contributions in the form of money, goods and services, to which there was considerable resistance. The lack of henchmen and craftsmen at the beginning of the Thirty Years War also made itself felt badly. The client and rulers in need of representation took over the major part of the costs with around 11,000 out of a total of 14,000 guilders. The church was consecrated personally on November 7, 1619, the Sunday before Martini, after only twenty months of construction by Philipp Schickhart, who then became the church's first pastor.

Thirty Years' War

Although the town church suffered hardly any building damage in the war years that began after its inauguration with all troops moving through, billeting and pillaging, it was hard pressed in a different way after the battle of Nördlingen in 1634: The victory of the imperial troops meant that in addition to other parts of Wuerttemberg the office of Göppingen came under the Austrian rule of the Catholic Archduchess Claudia von Tirol , who also required the Göppingen to profess the Catholic faith. This was justified with the Edict of Restitution of 1629, according to which the regulation of the Augsburg Religious Peace of 1555 should also apply after a change of rule and in the future: Whoever rules the country also determines the denomination of its inhabitants; so catholic regent - catholic citizens. Closure of the city church, tumults and fights in the Jesuit service, threats of punishment and imprisonment for baptisms and weddings performed elsewhere were the order of the day. Letters of protest and begging as well as city council delegations to Innsbruck brought just as little information about war looting by the imperial family, the tribute payments to be made and the pastoral care of the dying. Only the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 put an end to this forced re-Catholicization.

18th and 19th centuries

Interior after the renovation in 1909
Floor plan of the town church, depiction from 1924

In 1708 the ceiling had to be renewed - it was heavily bent when it was used as a fruit chute. But that did not hold up: On April 9, 1769, during the Good Friday service, there was a loud crash in the roof structure - panic ensued - and four people were killed while rushing to the doors that opened inwards.

A reinforced roof structure, which was only apparently improved in comparison with the Schickhardt construction, was made in 1770 with extensive use of construction wood from the Schickhardt period (also known as raft wood from the Black Forest) by foreman Johann Christian Adam Ezel (1743–1801) and Balier (foreman ) Frank re-erected, the wooden church ceiling repainted in the Rococo style and provided with a new cornice. Two more portals were also built into the eastern long side - incomprehensibly also opening inwards again. They have been permanently closed since 1976, when the new main entrance was opened from the western church garden, as they are not suitable as escape routes. The use of the grain floors without overloading until the last third of the 19th century no longer caused any roof damage. Since a stable inner framework was essential for the roof truss renewal, as with the new building, the galleries from 1619 also had to be dismantled. The subsequent interior construction of the church in 1772 did not take into account the previous transverse church concept, but created the interior that is found today. Church council builder Wilhelm Friedrich Goez from Ludwigsburg completely redesigned the gallery in 1772 in accordance with the taste of the time: In the course of the creation of a circulating gallery (see illustration from 1924), the pulpit was extended from the south-eastern long side, giving up the original and Reformation-theologically-based room the northeast narrow side relocated. The interior and the stalls were given a longitudinal orientation with equal emphasis on the axially arranged high pulpit (sermon of the word of God) and the free-standing altar below in front of it. The gallery is still supported today by the almost delicate, oak "Frey pillars", as master builder Goez calls the round pillars made of oak wood as gallery supports in all of his churches, that is, pillars that carry large loads when standing free. The manufacture of such columns (up to 4 meters in length, tapering towards the top with a slight curve) was only conceivable at that time with lathes that were driven by a mill wheel. The marbling work in white, red, blue and gold on the woodwork of the gallery parapet and the pillars was done by a member of the nationally important Deggingen plastering family Schweizer. The epitaphs previously hanging in the town church were removed in 1770 by two carpenters in the town church and installed in the Oberhofenkirche in order to have a quieter and more beautiful spatial impression.

From 1838 to 1845 the dilapidated tower in the south-west corner of the church, from the time of the city fortifications and St. John's chapel, was removed and today's tower was built in the middle of the south gable. The south portal designed by Schickhardt had to give way. The 52-meter-high tower with its neo-Romanesque style does not quite fit the Renaissance church and has destroyed the former Renaissance proportions (golden section) that also divided the south facade. However, it indirectly became a literary place of protest against the anti-democratic policies of the then King Wilhelm I of Württemberg : several democratic "rebellious" writings by the popular Göppingen schoolmaster, journalist and later honorary citizen Johannes Betz (1784–1881) were in the tower ball and in the masonry hidden and found at the end of the 20th century.

20th century

In 1899/1900 a sacristy and a confirmation room were added on the outside of the west side and in 1909/1910 by planning by senior building officer Heinrich Dolmetsch , who died in 1908, and posthumously by his son Theodor Dolmetsch together with Professor Felix Schuster a revision of the church in Art Nouveau style , which This is particularly evident in the subtle, geometric late Art Nouveau decor of the glass windows, the painting on the textile undersurface of the ceiling panels and the large chandeliers. The gallery and high pulpit of Goez were preserved, under the pulpit the axial arrangement of a baptismal font in front of the altar and the attachment of an altar barrier for the reception of the meal emphasized the triad of baptism - last supper - sermon and the wall behind the altar was closed at the suggestion of the state curator Eugen Gradmann . The altar barriers were removed again in the middle of the 20th century.

The last interior renovation took place in 1973–1976 under architect Peter Haag from Schorndorf and, after his death in 1974, by his office successor Erwin Laichinger. This was preceded by extensive change plans (drawing in an intermediate floor and establishing community rooms on the ground floor), but after heated public discussion and opinion polls in the community, these were not pursued any further. The color version from the Baroque period was taken over again and also transferred to the wood of the gallery parapet, but preference was given to Art Nouveau in the ceiling area and for the four large chandeliers. The coal stoves from the turn of the century and the steam heating of the 1920s were replaced in 1974 by the deep excavation of the church floor and the new construction of a real antique and at the same time environmentally friendly warm air hypocaust heater with gas firing and converter.

architecture

Göppingen town church, floor plan by master builder Heinrich Schickhardt, 1618, with stalls on the ground floor - east side below, inside with pulpit, outside with the remains of the broken-off chapel

Renaissance church

High, slim windows with broken triangular gables ( architraves ) define the facades. Eaves and gable cornices emphasize the horizontal compared to a bygone Gothic vertical structure. The rectangle of the north facade is structured by the portal, the rectangular and the round window in the golden ratio. Up until the gallery renovation in 1772, this also applied to the areas of the bench groups inside and to the south facade until the new tower was built in 1845. A universal constant of harmony has been seen in these proportions since ancient times. And the northern gable triangle contains in the equilateral triangular arrangement of the ten windows Tetraktys, the so-called spherical harmony since the early Greek mathematician Pythagoras , whose musical number and sound relationships (basic harmonic consonances) are supposed to express the structure of the human soul, every euphony and the perfection of creation and world harmony . These features of the Pythagorean triangle were even found in the shape and the arc of the curve of the roof of the old town church tower, which is still preserved in one image, as well as in the Schickhardt tower roofs that are still preserved today. All of these are expressions of the Renaissance with meanings and messages between philosophy and theology - today only understandable with guidance. The east portal to Kirchstrasse and the north portal to the castle with their rich decorations date from the time it was built. Only the coats of arms of Duke Johann Friedrich von Württemberg and his wife Barbara Sophie Margaretha of Brandenburg-Ansbach above the east portal, created by Steinmetz Melchior Gockheler from Schorndorf, are copies; their originals are in the holdings of the Göppingen City Museum.

Transverse church

Göppingen town church, elevation by master builder Heinrich Schickhardt in 1618, west wall on the right

In contrast to what can be seen in today's interior, Heinrich Schickhardt's town church was designed and built as a Protestant sermon church or sermon hall church without a choir based on the model of his smaller church St. Martin in Montbéliard as a transverse church : with a long-walled pulpit and altar on the narrow side - like the one Torgau Castle Chapel at Hartenfels Castle , inaugurated personally by Martin Luther in 1544, only with a three-sided gallery with space for the organ above the south portal and for the ducal family with “notables” above the north portal. The stately building has the external dimensions of 40.40 meters in length, 20.91 meters in width and 11.46 meters in height up to the roof extension and 24.50 meters up to the roof ridge. In the original configuration, it offered seats for more than 1,600 of the 3,000 parishioners.

Reformation conception

The transverse hall concept with seating, listening and viewing direction of the broadly gathered congregation solely on the pulpit on the eastern long side and the subordinate position and meaning of the free-standing altar table on the northern narrow side corresponded to Martin Luther's understanding of worship as he said in his Torgauer Expressly formulated the inauguration sermon on October 5, 1544 and that had already determined the building and furnishing concept there. A new type of church building was created: the focus of the church building and events is no longer the classic, elevated block or table altar in a sacred space, the choir, which is separate from the nave and reserved for the clergy , in which relics are embedded and on which Since the times of the Byzantine church building, the believer has moved towards it as if in a procession. In the center of the new evangelical preaching church is the pulpit, the place where the viva vox evangelii is proclaimed , the living word of God made in Christ. According to Luther, every place and space is right for its preaching, for prayer and for the Lord's Supper. The altar is no longer the consecrated place of the Sunday sacrifice, but the Lord's table , around which the congregation gathers for the priestly service of all believers, for the Lord's Supper - in Württemberg since the Reformation up to the church service reform in 1912, as a rule, annually almost exclusively for the important ecclesiastical ones Feast days.

Especially in Württemberg: purely Protestant church building

As the first new Protestant church in the world, the Nuremberg reformer Andreas Osiander inaugurated the palace chapel without cross-alignment on April 25, 1543, one and a half years before Torgau, in the Palatine Palace of Neuburg an der Donau , followed by the Torgau and then the Stuttgart palace chapel in Querkirchen -Shape. In St. Martin in Mömpelgard , the older Schickhardt Church, built 1601–1607, the pulpit was originally located on the (north) longitudinal wall. The first church built in Protestant Württemberg after the Reformation, the Evangelical Castle Church in Stuttgart's Old Castle , has to this day - despite the small polygonal choir extension in the middle of the long side - basically the same transverse hall design that others built or built by Schickhardt influenced churches, later master builders and in some Protestant baroque churches in a programmatic departure from the Catholic altar service found entry into the Protestant church building tradition. The classification of the Göppingen town church in this tradition has so far been missing in the representation and evaluation of Protestant spatial programs in Württemberg churches - despite clear archival evidence and the comparative comparison with the Torgau castle chapel .

The transverse hall, which was also designed in the Göppingen city church from 1619 to 1770 and oriented towards the preaching of the word, in the Lutheran understanding of worship and space, did not prevail everywhere in Württemberg in the first and second post-Reformation centuries and at first glance has similarities with church rooms with Reformed Calvinist characteristics .

Relationship to “Luther's First Church”: Torgau Castle Church

Memorial plaque for the inauguration of the town church on November 7, 1619

How strongly Heinrich Schickhardt referred to Martin Luther and the palace church building in Torgau when building the town church in Göppingen is also clear in the original inscription of the dedication: The house is now rebuilt / in praise of the Lord Jesus Christ. | He give that too, stay in / don't listen to God's word alone. | The first sermon in it that / and consecrated through prayer | Philip Schickhart Pastor of the Time. / Praise be to God in Ewigkeyt. | Anno 1619 / Sundays before Martini . It takes up the wording of a no longer preserved, but well-attested inscription in the Torgau Palace Chapel, which paraphrases the Latin text of the monumental bronze plaque that has been preserved in a simple German rhyming version: This house is new bawed / To praise the Lord Jhesu Christ. [...] God give it away, bleyb in / Nothing just hear God's word. […] Doctor Martin of God's man | The first preaches that / Darmit consecrated the house. / No Chrisssem / he needs white water / No Kertz / No fáan / nor weirauch. / The divine word / and his prayer / Sambt of the believers prays to it. The " consecration " of both churches took place - following Luther's liturgical ideas - expressly not through the conventional ceremony of consecration ( church consecration , altar consecration ), which in the Catholic Church was and is only carried out by the responsible bishop or his representative, but - as Luther in the Torgau inauguration sermon emphasizes - solely through the evangelical focus sermon word, hymn of praise of the community and prayer.

This means that the Göppingen town church in its original design, which was retained until the interior renovation in 1772, is the first church building in the regional church whose architectural-theological-liturgical conception, which goes back to Luther, is expressly attested. The inauguration on November 7th, the Sunday before Martin's Day and Luther's birthday, and on the 75th anniversary of the Torgau Palace Chapel corresponds to this meaning. Until shortly after the beginning and again from the end of the Thirty Years' War, the other new Protestant church buildings in Württemberg after the Stuttgart Palace Chapel in 1562 and the Laurentius Church in Oberderdingen in 1574 were either influenced by the sovereign himself or designed according to a preaching hall and transverse church concept that did not have a choir , or new constructions on and on the existing building stock (foundation, Gothic choir, tower) with a cross-church tendency with limited design options, or village churches designed according to the ideas of the patronage local nobility ( von Woellwarth , Haus Hohenlohe-Waldenburg and Hohenlohe Weikersheim , Schenken von Limpurg , patrician family Ehinger and others).

The roof structure: spanned wide and highly resilient

The Duke responded to the requests of the citizens of Göppingen for the profane use of the church (so to say: "for spiritual also the physical food"): Enlargement of the originally planned floor plan by including the western city wall after the start of construction, thereby also enlarging the top floor area, Design of the huge roof space as a "fruit chute" (grain box) on three floors. Because until now they had the Adelberger Kornhaus (today's use: Göppingen City Library ) available for this in return for payment of the “box interest”, which they could save in the future. A very demanding roof structure that stretched the large span and the load-bearing capacity to the limit was necessary because the church interior had to do without columns despite a clear width of almost 20 meters: one designed for three grain floors and one loft Roof space with triple hanging truss - roof truss - not made of oak, but of lighter fir beams - which is able to carry the weight of 100 tons of the approximately 50,000 bricks, the dead weight of the beams of 500 tons and the load of up to 2,000 sacks of grain ( 100 tons), which were raised and lowered using a built-in crane that was still in place. Schickhardt gave a detailed account of the almost three-fold increase in building costs due to the increase in the area by a quarter, the increase in the roof, additional building material and windows, the excess length of the beams (22 meters) and their transport from afar.

  • Stadtkirche Göppingen 1770, fruit chute 1st attic, with inscription from 1770

  • City Church of Göppingen 1770, crane

  • Göppingen town church, roof truss version 1770 by master builder Johann Christian Adam Etzel, outline Theodor Dolmetsch 1909

Furnishing

Göppingen City Church, bronze portal from 1998
City Church Göppingen, Floating Horizon 2004 (Klaus Heider)

In 1705 the first organ from 1619 was replaced by a new one. The crucifix comes from the Baroque period (approx. 1750). The pulpit made of lime wood from 1770 received the sculpture of the Good Shepherd as the main decoration on the sound cover , made by the sculptor Johannes Gößer from Deggingen. The movable baptismal font including the lid was only made in 1909/1910 and adapted to the baroque interior design of the church. Outside in the tower passage stands an altar stone (cement casting process) from 1922 by Jakob Wilhelm Fehrle as a memorial to the fallen from the First World War, belonging together with the memorial plaques on the south wall.

During the last interior renovation in 1973–1976, with the artistic advice of Gerhard Dreher, the raised altar, the sweeping altar cabinets used to receive the Lord's Supper and the baptismal font were replaced by modern and movable principal pieces by the sculptor and stonemason Johannes Engelhardt (1927–1990) from Wemding. Flexible seating replaced the fixed benches on the ground floor, which had been arranged in a semicircle since 1910. It can be adapted to the requirements of the smaller Sunday church service community (centering through semicircular seating in the middle of the room in front of the altar table with ambo ) as well as the needs for concerts, lectures, film and theater performances as well as youth services and the Vesper church with almost full dining table and Counter set-up. The long side walls were made usable for exhibitions around the year 2000 with picture rails and special lighting. The western extension (sacristy and confirmation hall) was demolished in 1974 before the interior renovation; Instead, a small, functional parish hall was built using a flat roof and exposed concrete (“pavilion”; renovated and expanded in 2004).

The metal sculptor Kurt E. Grabert (1922–1999) from Göppingen had created the bronze sculpture Africa Hunger , a begging mother with emaciated child, in view of the famine in Ethiopia in 1984 after media coverage of Birhan Woldu , and placed it on permanent loan at the west entrance of the church in 1999. For this main portal he designed a bronze double door from 1990-1998 based on medieval church portals and facades. The frame shows scenes and symbols of salvation, Reformation and contemporary history; the wings vary the theme "... and lived among us". Left wing: God comes into the world - in a child, The Lord's table - Christ breaks the bread, Station pedestrian zone - Christ carries the cross, fratricide; Right wing: The dialogue between denominations and religions, law and justice, charity and mercy, the fall of man - expulsion from paradise. The Bad Boller artist Klaus Heider , who was born in Göppingen and was awarded the Heinrich Schickhardt Culture Prize of the City of Göppingen in 1993, created a unique light installation especially for the city church as part of the Evangelical Church District Days and his integrated work exhibition Light: Presence - Absence Horizont "above the altar, a ten meter long strip of light made of electroluminescent foil , the" light of the future ".

organ

Organ of the city church

After the organs of 1619 (Johannes Schäffer from Heilbronn; two-manual with 15 registers, main work, Rückpositiv and pedal) and 1706 (Nicolaus Franciscus Lamprecht from Cannstatt; 16 registers, a manual and pedal, without Rückpositiv) the city church received its third in 1899 Organ by the Göppingen organ builder Karl Schäfer with 33 registers, two manuals and pedal. Construction officer Heinrich Dolmetsch designed the housing for this.

It became more and more fragile and worse in the 1960s, so that it was removed and stored in 1971. From 1977 to 1981 the tendering, awarding and completion of the current fourth organ by organ builder Richard Rensch (Lauffen / N.) ( Completely overhauled in 2002 by Rensch) took place. The abrasive loading -instrument has 42 registers (about 3,000 pipes ) on three manuals and pedal . The Spieltrakturen are mechanically, the Registertrakturen mechanically with electrical feedback bond. The organ case dates back to 1899. As in 1619, today's city church organ is again provided with a positive back.

I Rückpositiv C – g 3
Covered 8th'
Quintad 8th'
Principal 4 ′
Reed flute 4 ′
Octave 2 ′
third 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′
Pointed fifth 0 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
Zimbel IV 2 ⁄ 3 ′
Krummhorn 8th'
Tremulant
II Hauptwerk C – g 3
Pommer 16 ′
Principal 08th'
Viol 08th'
Gemshorn 08th'
Octave 04 ′
Coupling flute 0 04 ′
Fifth 02 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Octave 02 ′
Mixture V 01 1 ⁄ 3  ′
Cornet V 08th'
Trumpet 08th'
III Swell C – g 3
flute 08th'
Salicional 08th'
Voix celeste 08th'
Principal 04 ′
recorder 04 ′
Sesquialter II 0 02 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Field flute 02 ′
Sif flute 01'
Scharff V 01'
Dulcian 16 ′
oboe 08th'
shawm 04 ′
Pedal C – f 1
Principal 16 ′
Sub-bass 16 ′
Octave bass 08th'
Violon 08th'
Chorale bass 04 ′
Pipe pommer 04 ′
Back set IV 0 02 2 ⁄ 3  ′
trombone 16 ′
Trumpet 08th'
Clarine 04 ′

Daniel Speer (1636–1707), a former organist and cantor of the town church of Göppingen, has achieved a certain level of awareness with his special nature as a writer and composer of the Baroque era.

Bells

There is no information about city church bells in the 17th and 18th centuries, except that the largest bell in the Oberhofenkirche was given to the city church in 1653. Only in the parish description of 1828 is a "melodious and bright" four-bell ringing on the tower of the town church mentioned. After the demolition of this old tower in 1838, the four bells rang in the new tower from 1845 until they were partly cast and partly re-cast by Heinrich Kurtz in Stuttgart in 1886. The First World War forced most churches in Germany to deliver bells as metal donations by the German people for the armaments industry. Three of the four city church bells had to be handed in, the largest with a weight of 2147 kg remained on the tower.

In 1920 the Göppingen parish council ordered three new bells from the Stuttgart bell foundry, which at the end of July 1921 completed the ringing again. During the Second World War, the three new bells had to be delivered. In 1951, four new bells cast by Heinrich Kurtz in Stuttgart were put into service. They have the notes c - e - g - a - and thus the Te Deum motif as well as the first line of the chorale “Wake up, the voice calls us” for content.

Their inscriptions read:

No.
 		 Surname
 		 Mass
(kg)		 Diameter
(cm)		 Nominal
 		 inscription
 
1 2347 155.6 c 1 Lord God we praise you - After the war and in difficult times, the city of Göppingen donates this bell for the city church - Anno Domini 1951 - May it always serve the peace
2 1163 122.2 e 1 Be happy in hope, be patient in tribulation, stop at prayer - Romans 12,12  LUT - Evang. Parish of Göppingen, city church 1950
3 674 102.8 g 1 Bear the burden of one another and you will keep the law of Christ. - Galatians 6 : 2  LUT - Evang. Parish of Göppingen, City Church, 1950
4th 481 92.5 a 1 Peace, peace, those far away and those near - Evang. Parish of Göppingen, City Church, 1951 (Foundation of the L. Schuler company)

Outdoor area

The church garden to the west and south of the city church is laid out on the former inner city moat, which has long been filled. He has also been called Schulergärtle since 1913 , because Kommerzienrat Louis Schuler (1840–1913), son of the founder of the Göppingen company Schuler and a respected and committed promoter of communal life among the citizens, financed a small park and recreation facility on the church property was given a monument dedicated to him by his descendants.

Todays use

Since the merger of the town parish with the municipality of Oberhofen in 2005 and the elimination of the parish at the town church in 2007, services have only been held irregularly in the church. At the same time, the city church is the main venue for the central youth services and the youth culture days in the Protestant church district of Göppingen . It is also used for concerts, exhibitions and for the Vesper Church . The town church is an open church: it has been freely accessible to the public during daytime hours since 1984. This character of - also interreligious - openness was also expressed in the 400th anniversary year 2019 in a greeting to the opening of the exhibition by the Global Ethic Foundation.

The Göppingen City Church Foundation was founded in 2011 to preserve the city church over the long term. It is supposed to relieve the parish in maintaining the church.

Sources and literature

  • Main State Archives Stuttgart holdings N 220 A 9 and A 10
  • State Church Archives Stuttgart, Deanery Göppingen No. 54, 56, 66, 68, 140, 1552
  • Göppingen City Archives, inventory B No. 9
  • Julius Baum: The churches of the builder Heinrich Schickhardt. Dissertation. Tübingen 1905, pp. 50-53
  • Hans Christ, Hans Klaiber (ed.): The art and ancient monuments in the Kingdom of Württemberg. Inventory. (57th / 59th delivery: Donaukreis, Oberamt Göppingen ). Esslingen 1914, pp. 21, 23.
  • Erwin Rall: The church buildings of the Protestants in Swabia and southern Franconia in the 16th and 17th centuries. Typewritten dissertation. TH Stuttgart, 1922, pp. 33-34.
  • Ulrich Gräf: Studies on Heinrich Schickhardt with special consideration of the town church of Göppingen. Final thesis in the subject of building history at the Stuttgart State Building School, winter semester 1971/72 - Göppingen City Archives B 369.
  • Annette Hradecky: The Göppingen city church, built by Heinrich Schickhardt. Approval work for the 1st service examination for teaching at elementary and secondary schools SS 1976 - Göppingen City Archives B 315.
  • Festschrift: Re-inauguration of the City Church of Göppingen April 11, 1976. Ed. Ev. City parish of Göppingen 1976.
  • Ehrenfried Kluckert: Heinrich Schickhardt in Göppingen. Ed. City of Göppingen. 1991.
  • Leaflet: The door to the town church. Text by Dean Dieter Kunz. Göppingen undated (1998).
  • Sönke Lorenz, Wilfried Setzler (ed.): Heinrich Schickhardt - Builder of the Renaissance. Life and work of the architect, engineer and town planner. Catalog for the exhibition “A Swabian Leonardo? Heinrich Schickhardt (1558-1635). Master builder, engineer, cartographer ”of the Herrenberg City Archives and the Stuttgart City Archives. Leinfelden-Echterdingen 1999, pp. 158-163
  • Church guide: Evangelical town church Göppingen. Published by the Göppingen City Church Foundation on the occasion of the 400th anniversary. Göppingen 2019.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinrich-Schickhardt-Kulturstrasse - Die Straße In: heinrich-schickhardt-kulturstrasse.de , accessed on October 9, 2018.
  2. ↑ Monument curator Bodo Cichy in the commemorative publication for the rededication of the renovated church in April 1976.
  3. ↑ Werner Lipp: Alt-Göppingen's structural development - a historical study of the cityscape, combined with comparative studies on the founding of cities by the Staufer. Publications of the Göppingen City Archives, Volume 2. Göppingen 1962.
  4. ↑ The Göppingen Culture Prize, which was awarded for the first time in 1965, was named after the builder (renovation and expansion of the spa inn, new town church, construction of the first Göppingen Filsbrücke) - see: Archives and Museums of the City of Göppingen (ed.): Göppinger Histories. About people, events and buildings. Publications of the Göppingen City Archives. Volume 44. Göppingen 2005, p. 294.
  5. ↑ Moser (Ed.): Description of the Oberamt Göppingen. New edition. Unchangeable photomechan. Reprint [d. Ed.] Cotta, Stuttgart / Tübingen 1844. Horst Bissinger Verlag und Druckerei, Magstadt (near Stuttgart) 1973. (= The Württemberg Higher Office Descriptions , Vol. 20), ISBN 3-7644-0019-6 , p. 112 f.
  6. ↑ Philipp Schickhart: From the Kirchenbaw into the community. And then especially about Christian Evangelical initiation or relationship and first use of the Newen SchloßKirchen zu Göppingen. Three different sermons […] / Dieterich Werlin, Tübingen 1620. As a microfiche in the Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart, holdings Schickhard 6184, p. 29 ff. The date in the document refers to the Julian calendar that was still valid in Württemberg until 1700. The Gregorian calendar, which was introduced in 1582, was only gradually adopted across Europe, especially by the Protestant areas.
  7. ↑ Hans Christ, Hans Klaiber: The art and ancient monuments in Württemberg . Ed .: Württ. State Office for Monument Preservation. Donaukreis, second volume. Paul Neff Verlag (Max Schreiber), Eßlingen a. N. 1924, p. 17-24 .
  8. ^ Johannes Betz, honorary citizen of Göppingen. In: goeppingen.de .
  9. ↑ Ellen Pietrus: Heinrich Dolmetsch. The church restorations by the Württemberg builder. Stuttgart 2008, p. 240 f.
  10. ↑ Peter Haag : About the heating of church rooms ; in: Newsletter of the preservation of monuments in Baden-Württemberg, vol. 11 No. 2 (1968), Stuttgart 1968, pp. 52–56 - with answer and additions by Kirchl. Building Councilor Helmut Pottkamp, ​​Ev. OKR Stuttgart , available as PDF see [1]
  11. ↑ Christoph Seeger: "It doesn't always have to be Schickhardt!" On the importance of Heinrich Schickhardt for church building in Württemberg at the beginning of the 17th century. In: Robert Kretzschmar (ed.): New research on Heinrich Schickhardt ( publications of the commission for historical regional studies in Baden-Württemberg, B 151). Stuttgart 2002, pp. 111-143.
  12. ↑ Heinrich Schickhardt 1618: Cross section (west side is on the right) see [2]
  13. ↑ Images also in the Stuttgart State Archives, holdings N220 / A9 and in Ehrenfried Kluckert: Heinrich Schickhardt in Göppingen. Published by Stadt Göppingen on the occasion of the Schickhardt exhibition in Göppingen 1991. Göppingen 1991.
  14. ↑ Heinrich Schickhardt 1618/1619: Floor plan showing the church stalls (west side is on top) see [3]
  15. ^ Doct. Martinus Luther: Inauguration of a Newen house for the preaching room of Divine Words erbawet / In the Electoral Palace at Torgaw. Wittenberg 1546. Reprint for the 450th anniversary of the parish church in October 1994. Ed. Ev. Torgau parish, 1994.
  16. ↑ Martin Luther: Inauguration of a new house for the preaching office of the divine word, built in the electoral palace at Torgau (1546). Notger Slenczka, transmission: Jan Lohrengel. In: Martin Luther: German-German Study Edition (DDStA). Volume 2, edited by Dietrich Korsch and Johannes Schilling. Leipzig 2015, pp. 851–891.
  17. ↑ Torgauer Geschichtsverein e. V. and Evangelical Church Community Torgau (ed.): The Castle Church of Torgau. Contributions to the 450th anniversary of the inauguration by Martin Luther on October 5, 1544. Torgau 1994.
  18. ^ Castle Church: Reformation churches in Baden-Württemberg. In: reformationskirchen-wuerttemberg.de , accessed on October 9, 2018.
  19. ↑ Jörg Widmaier: Church stands across. The search for the "ideal" Protestant church building in Baden-Württemberg. In: Preservation of monuments in Baden-Württemberg. Newsletter of the State Monument Preservation, Volume 46, No. 4/2017, Stuttgart 2017, pp. 244–249; can be viewed as a PDF at uni-heidelberg.de . (Jörg Widmaier does not consider - apart from the Schlosskirche Stuttgart - the other transverse churches of the Renaissance and Baroque in Württemberg.)
  20. ^ Reinhard Lambert Auer: Protestant spatial programs in Württemberg. In: Cultural monuments of the Reformation in the German southwest. (Red.) Grit Koltermann, Jörg Widmaier. (Ed.) State Office for Monument Preservation in the Stuttgart Regional Council. Esslingen 2017, pp. 65-85 (72); available as PDF on [4] (Reinhard L. Auer does not name - apart from the Schlosskirche Stuttgart and the Stadtkirche Göppingen - the numerous other early and later transverse churches of the 16th and 17th centuries in Württemberg, and for the city church it seems to him that the one is in archives well documented planning and construction history of the Querkirche and the history of the renovation of 1770 to be unknown)
  21. ↑ Jörg Widmaier: The reformed church building in the German southwest. In: Cultural monuments of the Reformation in the German southwest. (Red.) Grit Koltermann and Jörg Widmaier; (Ed.) State Office for Monument Preservation in the Stuttgart Regional Council; Esslingen 2017, pp. 86–95; viewable as PDF on [5]
  22. ↑ DI 41, Göppingen, No. 431 (Harald Drös), in: Deutsche Insschriften Online - www.inschriften.net [6]
  23. ^ Text reproduction based on the recording by Tilemann Stella, travel diary, 1560 (Mecklenburgisches Landeshauptarchiv Schwerin, Altes Archiv, Fürstliche Reisen No. 57) and in the inventory from 1610 (Saxon Hauptstaatsarchiv Dresden, Finanzarchiv, former Magdeburg Rep. A 25a I, I No. 2343) - quoted from: Hans-Joachim Krause: Die Schlosskapelle. In: Torgau - city of the Renaissance. Published on the occasion of the 2nd Saxon State Exhibition in Torgau. Dresden 2004, pp. 39-47; and another: The castle chapel in Torgau. In: Faith & Power - Saxony in Europe during the Reformation. 2nd Saxon State Exhibition Torgau, Hartenfels Castle 2004; ed. Harald Marx and Cecilie Hollberg for the Dresden State Art Collections; Dresden 2004, pp. 175–188.
  24. ↑ Heinrich Schickhardt 1618: City Church, cross section (west side is on the right) see [7] as well as city church and steeple, elevation and cross section (west side is on the right) see [8]
  25. ↑ Bernd Kock: Baroque roof structures: construction and load-bearing behavior. Dissertation. Institute for Mathematics and Building Informatics at the University of the Federal Armed Forces in Munich. Munich 2011. Can be viewed at [9] , last accessed on January 7, 2019
  26. ↑ Main State Archives Stuttgart, holdings N 220 A 10
  27. ^ Lore Grabert-Kodera: Kurt Grabert 1922–1999 - Sculpture and Painting. Self-published, Göppingen o. J. (2003)
  28. ↑ Brian Stewart: Indepth: Ethiopia: Strange Destiny . ( Memento of March 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) The National (CBC) - last accessed on May 15, 2020.
  29. ^ Leaflet: The door to the city church. Text by Dean Dieter Kunz. Göppingen undated (1998)
  30. ^ Heinrich Schickhardt Prize of the City of Göppingen
  31. ↑ Klaus Heider: Through the time. Edition Galerie Edith Wahlandt. Edith Galerie Edith Wahlandt and Klaus Heider on the occasion of the exhibition “Through Time”, works from 1965 to 2006. Stuttgart 2006.
  32. ↑ Festschrift for the inauguration of the new organ. Ed. Ev. City parish of Göppingen, 1981.
  33. ↑ Information about the organ on the website of the organ builder
  34. ^ Archives and museums of the city of Göppingen (ed.): Göppinger stories. About people, events and buildings. Publications of the Göppingen City Archives. Volume 44. Göppingen 2005, p. 220.
  35. ↑ see [10]
  36. ↑ see [11] and [12]
  37. ↑ Provincial church overview see [13] , carried out in Göppingen by the LINDE e. V., Aid for the homeless in the district of Göppingen, see [14]
  38. ^ Church guide: Margit Haas: City church and Oberhofenkirche Göppingen. Edited by the Association for the Preservation of the Oberhofenkirche, Göppingen / Stuttgart 2005.
  39. ↑ available at [15]

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Coordinates: 48 ° 42 ′ 16.1 ″  N , 9 ° 39 ′ 3.8 ″  E