Unionskirche: Idstein’s Gothic Collegiate and Protestant Court Church
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.9
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Early Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page16 sections
History
Unionskirche is a Protestant church in Idstein, Germany, whose present building originated as the Gothic collegiate church of St. Martin, constructed between 1330 and 1350 under Gerlach, Count of Nassau. A college of six canons was founded for the church in 1333. The building later became a major Lutheran sermon and court church, and its transformed Baroque interior made biblical teaching central to the experience of worship.
Medieval Collegiate Church
A Romanesque church stood on the site before 1287, represented by surviving masonry in the tower. Its earlier history is otherwise unknown. The Gothic church that followed was built as a basilica, a church with a central nave higher than its side spaces. It served as a collegiate church, meaning that worship was conducted by a college of clergy rather than a monastic community.
The church became associated with the Nassau-Idstein court, and members of the ruling family were buried there. The medieval foundation provided the setting for later changes that altered both the building’s appearance and its religious function.
Reformation and Lutheran Use
Idstein adopted the Reformation in 1540 under Count Philipp of Nassau-Wiesbaden-Idstein. The Reformation was the sixteenth-century movement that divided Western Christianity and established Protestant churches, including the Lutheran tradition adopted in Idstein. The last Catholic collegiate priest left the town in 1553, after which the foundation became Lutheran. In 1817 it was incorporated into the Nassau Central Study Fund.
Until 1806, the remaining Catholics of Idstein were not permitted to hold services in the church. From 1806 to 1888 they used the palace chapel, then moved to their own church. The present congregation maintains ecumenical relations with the Catholic parish of St. Martin, with regular joint services held at both churches.
Count Johann’s Baroque Transformation
Between 1665 and 1677, Count Johann of Nassau-Idstein converted the church into a representative Lutheran sermon and court church. The work retained the medieval nave but extended the building westward and raised its walls. Gothic vaults and most of the pillars were removed, flatter roofs were introduced, and marble arcades, rounded portals, oval upper windows, and galleries reshaped the interior. Johann died shortly before the work was completed.
The church was regarded as the first major independent church building erected in Nassau after the Thirty Years’ War, the conflict that devastated much of Central Europe between 1618 and 1648. Its interior also represented a Protestant approach to religious instruction. Biblical paintings were integrated into the architecture so that theological narratives could be communicated to a congregation in which some people were unable to read.
Galleries were added on three sides in 1675. Their balustrades carry biblical quotations connected with the social offices whose reserved seats they marked, including court, municipal, administrative, judicial, civic, and presiding positions. The tower was heightened in 1714, dormer windows were added in 1725 to improve light for the galleries, and an octagonal spire between four gables was installed in 1830.
Renaming, Restoration, and Continuing Use
The church was known simply as the town church until 1917, when it received the name Unionskirche. The name commemorates the Nassau Union of 1817, which united Lutheran and Reformed Protestant congregations in the Duchy of Nassau and created the Protestant Church in Nassau. The union arose from the free decision of the participating pastors, unlike the union imposed in Prussia later that year.
High water affecting Idstein and the church led to renovation work between 1958 and 1961. Around the same period, three new bells replaced bells confiscated during the war. A comprehensive restoration carried out from 2012 to 2017 included the ceiling paintings. The congregation held a reopening service on 25 June 2017, during a period that also marked the 500th anniversary of the Reformation and the 200th anniversary of the Nassau Union.
In 2017, the parish received the Hessian Monument Preservation Prize from Hesse’s state office for historic-monument preservation. The church is also protected cultural property under the Hague Convention, an international system for identifying and protecting culturally important monuments and objects during armed conflict. Unionskirche remains an active parish church of the Protestant Congregation of Idstein, part of the Protestant Church in Hesse and Nassau, and is also used for concerts, including events of the Rheingau Music Festival.
Remains
Unionskirche stands in the center of Idstein’s historic old town. Its surviving fabric brings together the medieval basilica, remains of earlier church construction, the seventeenth-century Baroque rebuilding, and later additions. The tower lies north of the choir, while the choir area contains a crypt and the former Sebastian Chapel. Inside, the transformed nave is defined by marble arcades, galleries, extensive painted canvases, and furnishings from the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
Medieval Fabric and Burial Areas
Tower and Earlier Masonry
The tower contains masonry from the Romanesque church that stood on the site before 1287. Its position north of the choir preserves part of the earlier history of the site within the later Gothic and Baroque complex.
Choir Crypt and Sebastian Chapel
A crypt beneath the choir has a groin vault and dates from the beginning of the fifteenth century. The former Sebastian Chapel also survives. It has a star vault and was converted into a crypt in 1509. The small riders’ choir contains several Nassau-Idstein funerary monuments, while another crypt contains coffins belonging to members of the House of Nassau-Idstein.
Baroque Interior and Painted Program
Nave, Arcades, and Galleries
The seventeenth-century rebuilding extended the nave westward, raised the walls, and replaced the Gothic interior arrangement with marble arcades and galleries. The oval windows in the clerestory, the upper window zone that illuminates the central nave, were inserted as part of this transformation. Rounded portals and flatter roofs further altered the former Gothic appearance. Arnold Harnisch of Mainz and Hans Martin Sattler of Idstein removed the vaults and constructed the marble arcades.
The galleries on three sides carry balustrades with biblical quotations. These inscriptions relate to the reserved seating assigned to court, municipal, administrative, judicial, civic, and presiding offices, linking the physical arrangement of the interior with the social organization of worship.
Ceiling and Wall Paintings
Thirty-eight large oil paintings cover the nave ceiling and the upper parts of the walls. Painted on canvas between 1673 and 1678, they present biblical scenes, especially from the New Testament. This extensive use of painting as part of a Protestant church interior is unusual. Most of the works were painted by Michael Angelo Immenraedt and his pupil Johannes Melchior Bencard, both associated with Antwerp. Three were designed by Joachim von Sandrart, five were executed by his nephew Johann von Sandrart, and several draw on works associated with Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck.
The central sequence on the ceiling moves from the altar toward the rear. It shows the Transfiguration, the Elevation of the Cross, the Resurrection, the Descent from the Cross, the Ascension, and Saint John’s vision on Patmos, where heaven opens and angels bear the Gospel. The biblical figures wear courtly Baroque clothing. In the Visitation, Mary arrives with a servant carrying her baggage, and Elizabeth’s residence is shown with a formal garden. On the south wall, the Wedding at Cana resembles Rubens’s Feast of Herod.
Altar, Pulpit, and Baptismal Font
Arnold Harnisch made the marble main altar in 1676. It incorporates a late-seventeenth-century painting of the Last Supper. Christian Gassmann created the marble pulpit in 1673. An angel supports its soundboard, while a kneeling figure of Samson supports the pulpit itself. Martin Sattler made the marble baptismal font in 1675.
Above the altar, a fresco painted by Maximilian Pronner of Giessen in 1725 depicts the vision described in Revelation 5:12 and following. Decorative wooden pillars shaped like palm trees were installed in 1726, and Johann Urban Zais made the lattice that separates the elevated chancel.
Memorials, Organ, and Later Furnishings
Nassau Funerary Monument
To the left of the altar stands the funerary monument to Georg August Samuel von Nassau-Idstein, his wife Henriette Dorothea, and their children. Franz Matthias Hiernle created the monument following a design by Maximilian von Welsch. Other members of the Nassau-Idstein court buried in the church include Walram IV, Philip I, John, George August, Adolph II, Balthasar, and John Louis I of Nassau-Wiesbaden-Idstein, as well as Charles Louis, Count of Nassau-Saarbrücken.
Chandeliers and Organ
Two crystal chandeliers from the early nineteenth century hang above the main aisle. They originally belonged to the old Kurhaus in Wiesbaden. The 1912 Walcker organ was installed in the historic case of a Stumm organ made in 1783. Walcker restored the instrument in 1990. It has 30 stops distributed across two manuals and a pedal, with pneumatic key and stop actions.
The church choir adopted the name Idsteiner Kantorei in 1972. In addition to worship services and smaller regional performances, it began presenting two major concerts each year. Carsten Koch became cantor in 2003, and from 2004 to 2012 he directed a cycle of Beethoven’s symphonies for the annual European Heritage Day, concluding with the Ninth Symphony.
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