Protestant Church Saint Peter à Wolfisheim dans le Bas-Rhin

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Origin and history

The Protestant church of St. Peter of Wolfisheim, located in the Lower Rhine, is a building whose origins date back to the 12th century, with major transformations in the 15th, 16th and 3rd quarter of the 17th century. Its current structure combines a fortified porch tower (1492) on three levels – equipped with murderers and a gate in the middle of the hangar – with a nave of three spans extended by a flat-side choir, and a vaulted sacristy adjacent to the south wall. A vestige of a sundial (meridian type) remains on the southern facade, while a funeral slab of 1669 is placed on it. The church, originally Catholic, was ceded to Protestants from 1525 to 1559 before being returned to Catholics and then divided under the simultaneum (1693–62). Since 1962, it has been dedicated exclusively to Protestant worship, after an interior renovation in 1965.

The tower, built in 1492 (dated engraved in Gothic characters above the gate), probably served as a defensive tower, as evidenced by its murderers and its integration into a fortified enclosure, today materialized by a sandstone wall delimiting the adjacent cemetery. The nave, rebuilt smaller in 1572 after reshuffles in the 18th century, and the bedside of the 16th century illustrate architectural evolutions linked to religious conflicts. The building was inscribed in the Historical Monuments in 1934 (for a funeral monument) and in 2010 (for the church and its historical plate, including the cemetery). Its history reflects tensions between Catholics and Protestants in Alsace, particularly under the influence of the Counts of Hanau-Lichtenberg (reintroduction of the Reformation in 1570) and the Duke of Deux-Ponts (restitution to Catholics in 1559).

The simultaneum (shared use between the two cults) worked from 1693 to 1962, when the construction of a new Catholic church allowed Saint Peter to become exclusively Protestant again. The interior, completely renovated in 1965, partially erased the traces of past developments. However, the building retains remarkable medieval elements, such as the geminied bays of the bell chamber, separated by yellow sandstone columnettes, or the Harped Stone Chains (pink and yellow sandstone). These architectural details, combined with its turbulent history, make it a major witness to the Alsatian religious heritage, marked by the wars of Religion and the local specificities of Protestantism.

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