Église de la Paix de Frœschwiller, Protestant church in Frœschwiller, France.
The Église de la Paix is a red sandstone Lutheran church in Frœschwiller, built 1872–1876 to Charles Winkler's neo-Gothic design. Its central tower, modelled on Laon Cathedral, carries a clock with gold numerals and is flanked by two polygonal stair turrets with pointed roofs. A three-bay vaulted porch with three pointed-arch portals leads into a four-bay nave without transept.
The 1845 church, used as a hospital during the Battle of Frœschwiller-Wœrth on 6 August 1870, was destroyed in the fighting. Architect Charles Winkler designed a neo-Gothic replacement inspired by Laon Cathedral, funded by donations collected by the Nuremberg Hilfsverein under Crown Prince Friedrich. Pastor Charles Klein dedicated it as the Church of Peace on 30 July 1876; Kaiser Wilhelm I visited on 27 September 1876.
The church is named for peace after the 1870 Battle of Wörth, in which it served as a hospital for over a hundred wounded before burning. Its 1876 altar, by Nuremberg painter Friedrich Wanderer, bears an inscription recording gifts collected in northern Germany by preacher S. Nielsen; the predella shows Martin Luther beside Kuno Eckbrecht von Dürckheim, who brought the Reformation to Frœschwiller in 1552.
The church stands in the village centre, its north-south axis set by the 1845 nave, with the main entrance on the street side. The building is attached to the château of the Eckbrecht de Durckheim family, and the Straus-Durckheim memorial stands in the churchyard between the chevet and the château. It remains an active Lutheran parish church.
The organ, built by Steinmeyer of Bavaria, is the firm's only instrument in France: opus 145, with 16 stops on two manuals and pedal. Its facade pipes were requisitioned by German authorities in 1917, and Georges Schwenkedel replaced them with zinc pipes in 1931.
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