Ginsweiler - Religion

Religion

From the Early Middle Ages, Ginsweiler belonged to the Glan ecclesiastical chapter and was a branch congregation of the Church of Medard. After the Reformation was introduced into the County Palatine of Zweibrücken about 1537, all the village’s inhabitants had to embrace Martin Luther’s teachings. Likewise in 1588, a decree from the Count Palatine meant that everyone then had to adopt John Calvin’s Reformed beliefs. Only after the Thirty Years' War were the people once again allowed to adopt the Catholic or Lutheran faith. With the arrival of new settlers who had come to repopulate villages emptied of people by the Thirty Years' War, and with the promotion of Catholicism by the French during King Louis XIV’s wars of conquest, the Catholic share of local villages’ populations began to rise. It can thus be assumed that during the French wars of conquest, Roman Catholics settled in Ginsweiler. Another thing that could explain the strong growth in the Catholic population at this time is missionary work being done by the Franciscan convent that had then set itself up in the town of Meisenheim. Few seized the opportunity to convert to Lutheranism, and anyway, the Lutheran and Calvinist churches eventually united in the 1818 Palatine Protestant Union. In 1719, there were 21 Roman Catholic Christians living in the village, 38 Reformed (Calvinists) and 5 Lutherans. Of the 225 inhabitants in the village in 1825, 122 were Catholic and 81 Evangelical. Among the Evangelical inhabitants during the 19th century, there were always Mennonites who were counted along with them (8 in 1802; 17 in 1867). In 1961, Protestants were once again the greater group (161 Roman Catholics; 215 Evangelicals). Ginsweiler has never had its own church. The Evangelical Christians now belong to the parish of Odenbach while the Roman Catholics originally belonged to the parish of Reipoltskirchen, but since 1975 have belonged to the parish of Lauterecken.