Willum Church

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View from the north-west of the Willum Church in early June 2010

The Evangelical Reformed church in Werdenum is located in the East Frisian town of Werdenum ( joint community Brookmerland ). It was built around 1300 as a branch church of the Aland monastery and was originally consecrated to Johannes .

history

It is not known when the first church in Willum was built. The terp village was in the 8./9. Century first mentioned as "Vurtheim". In the Middle Ages, Willum belonged to the Uttum provost in the Münster diocese . Today's church was built around 1300 by monks as a branch church of the Aland monastery and was consecrated to John the Baptist. In addition to church services, the church building also served as a place of refuge in the event of severe storm surges in earlier centuries .

In the wake of the Reformation , the congregation switched to the Reformed Confession. After the Reformation, the church was probably the place of the Werdenum religious talk , in which on May 10, 1552 clergymen from Norden and Emden settled a sacrament dispute with the formula Werdenumana .

In the 18th century the building was lengthened by about three meters. From 1986 to 1993 the building was completely renovated.

Building description

The Werdenum Church is a rectangular hall church in the Gothic style . It stands at the highest point in the center of the village yard and, like most medieval churches, faces east-west. The building is around 25 meters long and 8.50 meters wide. In the outer masonry of the church there are clear traces of multiple renovations. Some windows were bricked up and new ones broken into the walls. The original pointed arched windows have been preserved on the east wall. The south and north entrances, through which men and women entered the church separately, are now closed, as is a presumed third entrance on the east side through which the Catholic clergy entered the building in the pre-Reformation period. Since the renovation work in the 18th century, the entrance has been on the west side. When the building was extended at that time, the vestibule on the west side and the gallery above were created.

When it was built, the interior of the church was probably closed off with a stone vault . This is indicated by the side walls of the nave, which are up to about four fifths of their height, as well as the upwardly curved bulge-like wall protrusion, which extends from north to south on the inside over the entire width of the east gable of the chancel.

As with many historical East Frisian churches, the bell tower was built away from the nave because the ground conditions were very unstable and it was not possible to build directly on the nave. The bronze bell dates from 1581.

  • South side with the arch of the former women's door

  • View from the south, on the tower Dutch reference to the KERK-VOOGDEN (church bailiffs) from 1761

  • North side

Furnishing

The simply designed interior is today from a flat Voute completed -Holzdecke that was installed in the 18th century. At the same time, the gallery in the west (the "Alanderboden") and the rood screen in the east, on which the organ was later placed, were installed. The most valuable piece of furniture in the church is the elaborately crafted pulpit that Hinrich Cröpelin from Esens created in 1699. The oversized octagonal sound cover is richly decorated with openwork tendrils and the pulpit with six twisted pillars, which are closed by winged angel heads, and carved flower hangings in the fields. The walkway that turns the pulpit into what is known as a "traveling pulpit" is unusual. Several banners carved from wood and set in gold adorn the sound cover, walkway and pulpit.

The magnificent chandeliers were lost during the Second World War and were replaced by simpler ones. The inscriptions on the Vasa Sacra tell of the donors. The silver communion chalice dates from 1592 and was given to the community by the church bailiffs at the time . It is now in the East Frisian State Museum . A bread plate dates from 1653, a jug from 1807. In 1854 the community received its first organ from Brond de Grave Winter , which was replaced in 1969 by a new one by Johann Reil from the Dutch Heerde. The instrument has ten registers on a manual and pedal . In the pulpit area there are two grave slabs of former pastors from the 16th and 17th centuries.

See also

literature

  • Hermann Haiduck: The architecture of the medieval churches in the East Frisian coastal area . 2nd Edition. Ostfriesische Landschaftliche Verlags- und Vertriebs-GmbH, Aurich 2009, ISBN 978-3-940601-05-6 , p. 168 .

Web links

Commons : Werdenumer Kirche  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Menno Smid: East Frisian Church History. Self-published, Pewsum 1974, p. 44 (= Ostfriesland in the protection of the dike. Volume 6).
  2. ^ Ortschronisten der Ostfriesische Landschaft : Werdenum, Samtgemeinde Brookmerland, District Aurich (PDF; 58 kB), accessed on May 12, 2011.
  3. ^ Antonius Matthaeus, Cornelius Paulus Hoynck: Veteris ævi analecta seu Vetera aliquot monumenta quæ collegit & ed., & Observationes suas adjecit A. Matthæus. [CP Hoynck] notæ. , P. 804 ( books.google.de ).
  4. ^ A b Gottfried Kiesow : Architectural Guide East Friesland . Verlag Deutsche Stiftung Denkmalschutz, Bonn 2010, ISBN 978-3-86795-021-3 , p. 103 .
  5. ↑ a b c 700 years of church walls - protection from floods and religious house (PDF; 4.74 MB) in: Village chronicle “Warfendorf Werdenum”. P. 86 f. Accessed May 21, 2011.
  6. ↑ 700 years of church walls - protection from floods and religious house (PDF; 4.74 MB) In: Village chronicle “Warfendorf Werdenum”. P. 91–96 (with photos from the pulpit).
  7. ^ Reformiert.de: Evangelical-Reformed Community of Willum , seen June 13, 2011.
  8. ^ Genealogy forum: Werdenum ( memento of June 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on May 24, 2019.
  9. ^ Walter Kaufmann : The organs of East Frisia . East Frisian Landscape, Aurich 1968, p. 249 .

Coordinates: 53 ° 28 ′ 42.4 "  N , 7 ° 12 ′ 19.6"  E