St. Gangolf-Pfarrkirche

How old is the church in Hiddenhausen?

Until now, it was assumed that the core of the church was a Romanesque parish church with a history dating back to the time before the Christianization of Westphalia. This would make St. Gangolf one of the oldest churches in East Westphalia. However, there is not a single known structural reference to the church building from around 800 to 1300. Extensive research in 2011 revealed that the current church is "only" a good 500 years old.

For over 400 years, it was a branch of the Bünder church of St. Laurentius, which formed the center of an extensive missionary district (original parish) in the diocese of Osnabrück. In a donation, Emperor Louis the Pious transferred the income and patronage rights to Herford Abbey.

With the division of the old Bünder parish district, the Hiddenhausen branch chapel became the parish church of a newly established parish in the middle of the 13th century. It comprised the farming communities of Hiddenhausen, Eilshausen, Lippinghausen, Oetinghausen and later also the village of Bustedt, which had grown out of the estate district. The parish continued to exist in this size until 1962, when four independent parishes were created by parish separation. The parish area covered by the "mother church" in Hiddenhausen extended to the entire area between Bünde and the free imperial city of Herford, with the exception of Schweicheln-Bermbeck and Sundern, which belonged to the Paderborn church province together with "hilligen Hervorde".

Further information: www.fahr-im-kreis.de