Valentine's Church (Rohrbach am Gießhübel)
The Valentine's Church in Rohrbach am Gießhübel , a district of Eppingen in the Heilbronn district in northern Baden-Württemberg , is a Catholic parish church that goes back to the original church of the place and was rebuilt in 1789/90.
history
Predecessor structure
A church with a surrounding cemetery already existed in the high Middle Ages on a hill south of Rohrbach, which is located in a damp lowland. It is assumed that the church was founded by the Sinsheim monastery , which originally also had the right of patronage and remained in the possession of various rights, even after ownership of the place and church was transferred to the Odenheim monastery in 1395 . On the occasion of this change of ownership, the church was first mentioned in a document.
The old church was probably a relatively small structure on the site of the present choir, with foundations made of rubble stones and a structure made of masonry and half-timbered, with a wooden roof and a wooden roof turret with bells. In the course of the Reformation , the Odenheim Monastery remained Catholic, while the Electoral Palatinate , to which the rights of the Sinsheim Monastery had fallen after its abolition in 1565, was reformist in mind, so that there was a dispute over the patronage law and the obligation to build the church in 1574 was devastated by delegates from the Electorate of the Palatinate. The ongoing dispute meant that necessary conservation measures were not taken and the church fell into disrepair. The church suffered further damage during the Thirty Years' War , but it was not repaired afterwards either. In 1657 the roof and parts of the ceiling beams collapsed. In 1668 the church was poorly repaired by the citizens. Since the Electoral Palatinate did not contribute to the costs, the Reformed pastor was denied future use of the church, the continued ruinous condition of which was often put on record. In September 1777 the church finally collapsed.
Church building from 1789
The knight's monastery in Odenheim advocated the rapid construction of a new church and retained various tenth shares from the Electoral Palatinate to finance the construction work. Since it was still a matter of dispute who actually had the building obligation, the Imperial Court of Justice in Wetzlar was called in 1779 to clarify the situation. While the process was still ongoing, the episcopal treasury reached a compromise between the parties involved in 1786, which approved the construction of a new church with the retained tithe shares for the Odenheim Knights' Foundation. A building inspector Wahl drew up the first plans for a new building. This was initially planned as a simple single-nave hall church with a choir attached to the west and a sacristy attached to it again to the west . The east gable and the roof turret were to be taken over from the old church. The contract to carry out the construction work was awarded to the builder Jakob Messing from Bruchsal in 1788.
Even before the construction of the new church began, the old east gable was in danger of collapsing, so in 1789 it was decided to build a new tower as the eastern end of the new church. The planning came again from building inspector Wahl, the construction contract for the tower was awarded to foreman G. Lipps from Eppingen.
Various smaller planning changes had to be made before the construction was completed. The sacristy would not be built on the west, but on the north side, the building area was moved a little to the west, whereby only the north flight of the old church was retained. Construction began in May 1789, and the church was provisionally completed in late 1790. At first, apart from the old altar from 1720 from the old church, there was no interior, in particular almost no chairs, so that most of the believers had to stand. In 1793 a new side altar was procured, then another and in 1810 a new main altar. The side altars were painted in color in 1820. In 1821 the church was painted by the painter Saß from Bruchsal. In 1881 enough pews could finally be procured, in the following years a floor covering was laid and some statues of saints were procured.
Soon after the provisional completion in 1790, the first construction defects appeared. The tower roof and the church windows were repeatedly damaged by the weather. Since there was still a dispute about mandatory construction in the early 19th century, necessary repairs were often delayed for years. As early as 1876, the first major renovation of the building was therefore essential. In 1897 all windows on the north side were destroyed by hailstorms, in 1903 the church was repainted in the baroque style by the painter Hoch from Dilsberg.
Since the church, with its 240 seats, had long been too small for the congregation, including the surrounding villages, with around 1050 believers, an expansion was decided in 1913. Plans were still being made for this, but due to the political development (outbreak of the First World War ), the expansion was not carried out, and in the following years there were no more funds available for maintenance costs. After the tower roof was repaired in 1938, the storage floor, which had been eaten away by the woodworm , had to be relocated in 1940 as part of emergency work. In the course of the 1940s, the expansion plans were given up completely because of the shrinking community size. One reason for this was that, due to the large influx of mostly Catholic displaced persons from the eastern regions, the former branch community in Sulzfeld had become a separate pastoral care district.
In 1947/48 extensive but makeshift repairs were made to the various defects in the church. The painting of the church was also whitewashed. The repairs did not last long, as extensive damage to the roof structure was found again at a building show in 1954, which was repaired in 1958. In 1961, during a new construction show, considerable defects in the masonry and the tower were found, which, due to the seriousness of the defects, did not allow repairs to be postponed. From 1968 to 1970 the interior of the church was extensively renovated, including new benches. Another extensive renovation followed from 1981 to 1985.
description
The Valentine's Church is a single-nave aisle church with a nave measuring 13.45 × 22.20 meters and the 8.50 × 11.00 meter choir facing west. To the east, the church has a square floor plan of 6.00 × 6.00 meters, 29.10 meters high, with a pyramid helmet. The church is accessed through the basement of the tower or side portals on the south and north sides. On the west side of the gable, a gallery has been drawn in, on which the organ is located. The building shows stylistic features of baroque and classicism .
The main altar in the choir, made in 1810, shows a crucifixion group as a central motif, which is surrounded by other figures. The St. Mary's altar on the left of the choir and the St. Valentine's altar on the right of the choir each bear figures of the saints. A Pietà is also set up in a niche in the north wall . To the side of the choir on the north wall there is a baroque pulpit with an ornate, putti-crowned sound cover.
organ
The organ was built in 1815 by the Heidelberg organ builder Ubhäuser and in 1904 received a new two-manual organ from the factory for organ building H. Voit & Sons from Durlach. The organ's tin pipes had to be delivered in 1917 due to the war; they were replaced by zinc pipes in 1927. In 1985 the instrument was renewed by the Mönch organ building workshop in Überlingen while retaining the Ubhäuser case and remnants of the Voigt pipework.
graveyard
To the west of the church is the Rohrbacher Friedhof. Around the church are various historical tombs of Rohrbacher pastors, a war memorial donated in 1922 for the fallen soldiers of the First World War, which was later supplemented with the names of the fallen soldiers of the Second World War, as well as the concrete relief tomb created by Emil Wachter for Anton Fränznick .
Sound cover of the pulpit
Organ on the west gallery
Historical tomb on the outer wall
literature
- 200 years of the parish church of St. Valentin Rohrbach aG , Rohrbach a. G. 1989
Web links
Dreifaltigkeitskirche Elsenz | Evangelical Church Elsenz | Evangelical town church (Eppingen) | Evangelical Church Mühlbach | Evangelical Church Richen | Sacred Heart Chapel | Johannes Nepomuk Chapel | St. Catherine's Chapel | Birth of Mary | Our Lady of Sorrows | Lady Chapel | St. Boniface | St. Nazarius | Our Lady | Valentine's Church | Pilgrimage Church Ottilienberg
Coordinates: 49 ° 8 ′ 19.2 ″ N , 8 ° 51 ′ 16.1 ″ E