Knysna, Rondevleihoogte, Lutheran Church

Abstract

Photographs and information on the St. Michaelis Lutheran Church and its bell in Rondevleihoogte, near Knysna. The St Michaelis Lutheran Church lies in Rondevleihoogte, a small village between George and Sedgefield. The church developed from a two-class school into a NG Church in 1931. In 1986 the church was taken over by the Lutheran Church. The location of the church is quite spectacular, close both to the Indian Ocean and mountains of the Karoo. The set-up is very different from that in other Lutheran churches. First of all, the building itself has a Dutch colonial appearance. Close by is a small replica of the original Voortrekker and Covenant Church in Pietermaritzburg. Some distance from the church stands a detached bell tower that is probably very recent. According to our information, the original church possessed only a school bell. The current bell dates from 2004 making it one of the youngest bells in the Western Cape. The bell weighs 78 kg and has been founded in the Kunstwerkstätten in Maria-Laach, Germany. This city is worldwide known as the siege of an old abbey of the Benedictines that had a foundry already in the 13th century. Its operations stopped after the Second World War but were taken up again in 1997. Bells from this foundry appear both in Roman Catholic and in Protestant churches worldwide. The bell in Rondevleihoogte is special because of its name SÜDAFRIKA that it got at the time of founding. On one of the waists we read MEINE ZEIT STEHT IN DEINEN HÄNDEN Psalm 31. On another side of the bell one finds the foundry’s emblem: We can decipher the date of founding 2004, a cross referring to the fact that the foundry belongs to an abbey, an M for Maria and an L for Laach. Birgit Müller, a bell expert for the German Diocese of Speyer, wrote a lovely booklet on the making, travelling and installation of the bell.