page_title: Dirmstein
section_title: Religion
hierarchical_section_title: Dirmstein / Population / Religion
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Laurentiuskirche (Südportal) zu Dirmstein, selbst fotografiert am 28.04.2006 und freigegeben durch Benutzer:Mundartpoet
context_page_description: Dirmstein is an Ortsgemeinde – a municipality belonging to a Verbandsgemeinde, a kind of collective municipality – in the Bad Dürkheim district in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. With its roughly 3,000 inhabitants, it is the thirdlargest Ortsgemeinde in the Verbandsgemeinde of Leiningerland, whose seat is in Grünstadt, although that town is itself not in the Verbandsgemeinde. Dirmstein lies in the outermost northeast of the district and the northwest of the Rhine-Neckar urban agglomeration.
  In the 8th century, Dirmstein had its first documentary mention, although this was undated. The first dated documentary mention came in 842. Although it never belonged to the Counts of Leiningen, it is today counted as part of the Leiningerland, the name used for those noblemen's old domain. The historical and well restored village centre has been raised to a monumental zone by the monument protection authority. Of the 58 protected objects, 48 lie within this zone. With few exceptions, they go back, like the village's foremost landmark, the Baroque simultaneous church St.
context_section_description: Dirmstein's first parish church stood in the "Lower Village". It was built in Romanesque times, clearly before 1044 and presumably on a bishop's initiative, for it was consecrated to the patron saint of the Bishopric of Worms, Saint Peter. Given several consistent sources, historians estimate the church's capacity at only some hundred persons, implying low population figures. The "Upper Village" had at its disposal the Gothic Saint Lawrence's Chapel (Kapelle St. Laurentius), first mentioned in 1240, which was raised to a branch church. In the 14th century it was joined by Saint Anthony's Chapel (Kapelle St. Antonius) at the graveyard in the "Lower Village" and the Infirmary Yard Chapel of Mary Magdalene (Spitalhof-Kapelle St. Maria Magdalena) in the "Upper Village". These chapels, too, are an indication that the low population would have made a big church needless.
  Saint Lawrence's Chapel was converted in the 16th century into a Reformed church. Burnt to ruins in the 1689 fire, it was replaced in 1742 to 1746 by today's Baroque simultaneous church, which stands on the same spot, and whose Catholic part was once again consecrated as Saint Lawrence's. Its capacity was enough for the whole village. Given this, and Saint Peter's Church's continuing slide into disrepair in the 18th century, the latter church was auctioned off in 1809 and torn down. Saint Anthony's Chapel was likewise relieved of its duties when the old graveyard was forsaken and  a new one established about 1850. The Infirmary Yard Chapel has lasted until the present day, although it has been deconsecrated and several times remodelled.
  In 1367 in the north of the village centre, an Augustinian priory was founded, as was an Augustinian monastery in 1500, which was later run by the Jesuits. While the Augustinian monastery only lasted until it was burnt down in the Peasants' War in 1525, the Jesuit house lasted for 300 years. In the Late Middle Ages, the monks had the sulphur-bearing mineral spring that they used northwest of the village, the Chorbrünnel, set in stone. The Dirmstein priest's post, before it was taken over by regular priests, is believed to have been occupied by the Jesuit fathers, although only the records from the later years, from 1685 to 1705, are preserved. About 1800, the Jesuit community was dissolved as a result of the French Revolution and its attendant Secularization.
  Religious affiliation over the last 250 years is well documented, and in this time it was, given the population figures, subject to great change.
  The simultaneous church was built in 1746 with the floor area allotted at a 2:1 ratio in the Catholics’ favour for in the mid-18th century, this corresponded with the village's denominational makeup of two-thirds Catholic and one-third Protestant or Reformed. Somewhat more than half a century later, though, only 56% of the villagers were Catholic and 40% Protestant. After 2000 Protestants were 45.46% of the population, Catholics 33.74% and those with other or no religious beliefs 20.79%.
  From the time of the first written evidence of a Jewish community (1464) until the early 20th century, the Jewish share of the population was usually a few dozen, peaking at 129 in 1855. Beginning no later than 1738, and thereafter with interruptions, the Jewish community maintained a "Judenschuhl", a folk word for synagogue. In 1858, after building work lasting two years, a new synagogue was consecrated on the corner of Mitteltor and Hildebrandstraße (near Saint Lawrence's and across the street, slantwise, from the Old Town Hall). Over the next few decades, the Jewish community shrank mainly owing to emigration. About 1913 it virtually ceased to exist. The now no longer used synagogue was falling ever further into disrepair. In 1932, the ramshackle building was sold and remodelled from the ground up, leaving only the rear façade in its original form. It is now used as a house, and no longer shows any sign of its former function. In Nazi times, all Jews still living in Dirmstein in 1940 fell victim to the Holocaust with the exception of the three
caption: South portal of the Laurentiuskirche
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