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Origin and history

The church of St.Georges of Urschenheim, located in the Upper Rhine, has its origins at the end of the 12th century with the construction of a chapel with a unique nave and a tower. This first Romanesque building had frescoes and geminous bays characteristic of the period. Little modified until the 18th century, it underwent a possible partial reconstruction of the nave in 1760, before becoming parish church in the early 19th century, in the face of the growth of the religious community.

In 1840, an expansion project was launched: only the Romanesque tower was preserved, while a new nave and a semicircular choir were built, completed in 1842. Ranked a historic monument in 1895, the church was severely damaged during a bombing in 1945, destroying its stained glass windows. Its restoration in the 1950s, led by Abbé Vetter and artist Léon Zack, marks an aesthetic turning point with the adoption of a contemporary style, creating local tensions.

The tower, symbol of the building, preserves four Romanesque levels, including the vaulted ground floor adorned with cubic capitals and frescoes. The third level has bays that are gelatinated in the middle of the skin, typical of the 12th century. Subsequent renovations (1988-1989 for the nave, 1994 for the tower) preserved this heritage, while integrating modern elements such as the geometric windows of Léon Zack (1957) or the choir's antependium.

The present furniture reflects this historical duality: the ancient altar, stripped of its original decor, is overhanged by a contemporary Zack canvas depicting the Ascension. Two stones engraved with the effigies of Saint Arbogast and Saint Odile, works by Zack, frame the choir. These artistic choices, imposed without consultation, erased part of the earlier heritage, illustrating the debates between preservation and modernization.

The materials of the tower, composed of sandstone and basalt bellows probably from the Kaiserstuhl (Germany), testify to regional exchanges. The closing wall, dated 1793, and the traces of the reconstruction of 1840 (cost 34,595 francs) recall the administrative and religious developments of the village, from the status of a subsidiary of Widensolen to that of an independent parish in 1804.

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