St. Nicholas - more than 700 years of history

A church in Bieber is mentioned for the first time in a will of the Frankfurt citizen Wicker in 1270. Just under 40 years later (1307), Bieber was appointed its own parish and in 1425 the Archbishop and Elector of Mainz also became the sovereign of Bieber. The church records begin with the first entries in 1649. In 1701, the old church from the 15th century is demolished and a new church is built. The old Gothic tower is preserved. The first organ, which was purchased in 1775, proves that not everything has to be new, as it was already in use. A century later, the church was extended to 370 seats with a neo-Gothic nave. The old church serves as a transept, while the medieval tower is preserved in a new shell.

The new building replaced around 720 seats. During the construction period, church services were held in the gymnasium, the sisters' house and in the schoolyard. On the morning of December 11, 1944, a heavy American air raid hit Bieber, destroying the rectory and severely damaging the church. After the end of the war in 1945, the church could be used again and the choir of the St. Nicholas parish was founded. The new and larger rectory is completed in 1947.

The church is 16 meters wide and 35 meters long, spanned by a high barrel vault. The chancel in front is raised by six steps. On the west side, there is a flat side aisle and the 38-metre-high tower. Today, the church no longer has side aisles, but is a single room that looks like a hall when you enter it. The design has one advantage: the gray stone altar is visible from every seat in the "holy hall".

The exterior façade of St. Nicholas Church looks like a practical building, simple, without ornamentation or embellishment. A simple elegance also prevails in the interior, which sets the scene for the pointedly placed works of art - such as the meter-high figure of Christ above the altar and the sculptures of saints on the side wall. A light-colored paint job, the red painting of the vault and the back wall of the choir and the red-brown wooden benches. The long stained-glass windows depict the legends surrounding the patron saint St. Nicholas, while the smaller, round windows show the legend of St. Sebastian, who was shot with arrows during the Roman Empire because of his Christian faith. There are also pictures on the walls depicting the 14 stations of Jesus' way of the cross.

An eye-catcher: the four-metre-high, grey, silver and gold sculpture in the curve of the chancel depicts Christ ascending to heaven. It was installed in 1963 when the church was redesigned. The corpus on the cross dates from the 15th century. It was located on a cross under the choir arch of the new building from 1701/08 and was hung in the choir as a triumphal cross in 1879.

The figure of St. Nicholas comes from the late Gothic period. The choice of St. Nicholas of Myra as patron saint is not surprising, as he was very popular in the centuries surrounding the founding of the Bieber parish. However, St. Nicholas also venerates St. Sebastian as the saint of the plague on his day of remembrance (January 20). The earliest records of this date back to 1708, when a side altar was dedicated to the saint in the new church. His figure dates from the Baroque period. The "Anna selbdritt" side altar in St. Nicholas Church in Bieber is a precious detail well worth seeing. The original sculpture of St. Anne with her daughter Mary and the infant Jesus from the late Gothic period has been preserved. This typical depiction of three goes back to the cult of St. Anne in the late Middle Ages.

The St. Nicholas parish was initially able to increase and then stabilize its membership numbers thanks to the influx of new members to Bieber in recent decades. Whereas in the 1930s there were still around 3,500 Catholics in the church, today there are around 5,500. This was also aided by the establishment of the branch parish of St. Hildegard in Waldheim. Church services have been held there since 1975, initially in the canteen of a company and since 1982 in the St. Hildegard building. Both St. Hildegard and St. Nikolaus each have a church choir. The fifth - carnival - season is also celebrated in Bieber, when the young people organize two big carnival evenings for the people of Bieber once a year. The social commitment extends beyond this and includes senior citizens' circles, a women's circle, various activities for young people and pilgrimages. In addition, the processions on special religious occasions such as Corpus Christi are still well attended in Bieber.

The "Sisters of Divine Providence" established their 47th branch in the diocese of Mainz in 1892 in the sisters' house on the Rebstock in Bieber. The sisters, usually six in number, taught sewing and provided outpatient services. In 1896, the community kindergarten was established there. In June 1976, the Catholic kindergarten moves from the Sisters' House Am Rebstock to the new building next to the church after the "Sisters of Divine Providence" leave the parish in the same year after 80 years of activity.