Selchenbach - Religion

Religion

Selchenbach lay in the Remigiusland, thereby putting it under the authority of the Bishopric of Reims; parts were later owned by the Wörschweiler Monastery. Oberselchenbach, which belonged to the parish of Niederkirchen, had its own, small church, but this was destroyed in the Thirty Years' War, and was never built again. By the traditional rule of cuius regio, eius religio, all the inhabitants had to convert in the days of the Reformation according to their ducal rulers’ demands first to Lutheranism, and then later, in 1588, on Count Palatine Johannes I’s orders, to Calvinism.

At the turn of the 17th century, Unterselchenbach belonged to the church of Konken, as reflected in its belonging to the lordly domain of the Remigiusberg Monastery. After the Thirty Years' War, religious freedom was theoretically in force, although in practice the great majority of the population remained Protestant (Calvinist or Evangelical). In 1821, Unterselchenbach was transferred to the parish of Niederkirchen, but this arrangement was reverted only two years later. Oberselchenbach was transferred out of the parish of Niederkirchen in 1966 and into the parish of Konken. The village’s few Catholics belong to the parish of Kusel.