St. Martinus is a Catholic church and parish in Hattersheim am Main,

Main-Taunus-Kreis Main-Taunus is a Kreis (district) in the middle of Hessen, Germany and is part of the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region as well as the Frankfurt urban area. Neighboring districts are Hochtaunuskreis, district-free Frankfurt, Groß-Gerau, d ...

Hesse Hesse (, , ) or Hessia (, ; german: Hessen ), officially the State of Hessen (german: links=no, Land Hessen), is a States of Germany, state in Germany. Its capital city is Wiesbaden, and the largest urban area is Frankfurt. Two other major histor ...

, Germany. It belongs to the Diocese of Limburg. The present church was built by Ludwig Becker in

Romanesque revival style Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended to ...

with allusions to Jugendstil, completed in 1915. He incorporated features from the earlier

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

building.

History

The present church is in the centre of Hattersheim, prominently at its highest point at . A medieval chapel was the first house of worship at the location in the former village, documented in 1313 when Hattersheim became an independent parish. In 1747, a

church was built, with a ridge turret. It was dedicated to

Martin of Tours Martin of Tours ( la, Sanctus Martinus Turonensis; 316/336 – 8 November 397), also known as Martin the Merciful, was the third bishop of Tours. He has become one of the most familiar and recognizable Christian saints in France, heralded as the ...

. A statue of Mary from the 15th century and a pulpit from around 1800 were kept, when the church was mostly demolished to make room for a larger building. The present building in

with elements of Jugendstil was designed by Ludwig Becker. He used part of the previous church as a

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building withi ...

in the back of the new building, now serving as a chapel for baptisms. He also retained the windows and the entrance in the west, and the turret. Building was completed in 1915. The choir of the new church faces west, with a high tower on the side, covered with a double-arched elongated

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, from ...

. The interior is covered with coffered

barrel vault A barrel vault, also known as a tunnel vault, wagon vault or wagonhead vault, is an architectural element formed by the extrusion of a single curve (or pair of curves, in the case of a pointed barrel vault) along a given distance. The curves are ...

s. All vaults are decorated with painting. The glass windows are by August Martin from

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...

, notably of the chancel windows with the

Seven Sacraments There are seven sacraments of the Catholic Church, which according to Catholic theology were instituted by Jesus and entrusted to the Church. Sacraments are visible rites seen as signs and efficacious channels of the grace of God to all those ...

behind the pulpit. The church contains three altars: the Virgin Mary Altar from 1915, and the High Altar and the Sacred Heart Altar, added in 1930, all created in

Hans Steinlein Hans Steinlein (1872 in Trier - 1958) was a German sculptor of religious art who, from his studio in Eltville am Rhein, made a number of important altars and other objects for churches in the Saarland area. Steinlein was born into a family of whe ...

's Eltville workshop. The

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks ...

, with 36 stops, three manuals and pedal, was built in 1936 by Eduard Wagenbach. It is suitable for music of the

Romantic era Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

. The church is a venue of the

Rheingau Musik Festival The (RMF) is an international summer music festival in Germany, founded in 1987. It is mostly for classical music, but includes other genres. Concerts take place at culturally important locations, such as Eberbach Abbey and Schloss Johannisberg, ...

; the vocal ensemble

Voces8 Voces8, styled VOCES8, is an a cappella octet from England. They have appeared internationally and made recordings of classical music, jazz, pop, and their own arrangements. Recent recordings are for Decca Classics and under their own label, Voc ...

appeared on 14 July 2022 with a program named Stardust, of music from William Byrd to Nat King Cole. It was recorded to be aired in the ARD Radio Festival of the German public broadcasters. The parish is part of the Diocese of Limburg. Other churches within the parish St. Martinus are Christ König in Okriftel and St. Martin in Eddersheim.

References

External links

* (in German) {{DEFAULTSORT:Hattersheim, Martinus Romanesque Revival church buildings 1910s architecture Roman Catholic churches in Hesse Buildings and structures in Main-Taunus-Kreis Churches in the Diocese of Limburg

History

References

Further reading

External links