Neunkirchen Am Potzberg - Religion

Religion

It is highly likely that during the Early Middle Ages the church on the Potzberg’s northeast slope in Neunkirchen am Potzberg was the mother church for a series of villages in this region. It may well have been a wooden church on whose site in the 12th century a stone church was built. This church may have been remodelled many times in the centuries that followed in the Gothic style, bearing witness to which is a walled-up window that was discovered during restoration work in 1956. At some unknown time before the 14th century, this church became a branch within the parish of Deinsberg, today’s Theisbergstegen. At the time of the irrevocable introduction of the Reformation into the Duchy of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, following the principle of cuius regio, eius religio, everyone in the village had to convert to Lutheran belief. When towards the end of the 16th century the Duchy converted to Reformed belief, Palatinate-Veldenz, to which Neunkirchen am Potzberg had belonged since 1543, did not embrace this newer faith and kept its people with Lutheranism, and likewise the church in the middle of the village, which was renovated sometime before 1700, remained Lutheran. Beginning in 1698, the Lutheran community once again formed its own parish, splitting away from Theisbergstegen. Growing in number bit by bit in the Potzberg area, though, was the number of Reformed Christians who clove to John Calvin’s teachings, and who found themselves greatly at odds with the Lutherans. At the same time, during French King Louis XIV’s wars of conquest, the French were promoting Catholicism once again, and later so was Electoral Palatinate. Growth continued on into the 19th century. In 1825, roughly a fifth of the inhabitants adhered to the Roman Catholic faith, and by 1961, this had reached almost 40%. The Reformed believers built a church for all their worshippers in the surrounding villages in Neunkirchen am Potzberg, which was completed in 1747. At that time, the following villages belonged to the Reformed parish: Neunkirchen, Oberstaufenbach, Föckelberg, Reichenbach, Reichenbachstegen, Albersbach, Kollweiler, Jettenbach, Haschbach am Remigiusberg, Rutsweiler am Glan, Mühlbach, Lauterecken, Heinzenhausen, Lohnweiler, Wiesweiler and Niedereisenbach. Later, Schwanden also belonged to the parish, while the last for villages named were removed from the Amt of Lauterecken. Thus Neunkirchen am Potzberg had two churches, as Johann Goswin Widder reported. The Reformed church was torn down in 1824. At the same time, the until now Lutheran church was thoroughly renovated and remodelled in the Historicist style with, among other things, a new 16 m-high ridge turret. Given that the Lutheran and Reformed churches had recently merged in the Protestant Union, only one Protestant church was now needed. Laid out all round the church building is the graveyard. Its girding wall dates from the Middle Ages. Today, the still self-administering Evangelical parish of Neunkirchen with its branches of Föckelberg and Niederstaufenbach belongs to the deaconry of Kusel. The Catholic Christians belong to the parish of Reichenbach.