The temple

Nestled on the right bank of the Bruche, Rothau was the administrative centre of the Ban de la Roche domain. Le Ban, comprised of six municipalities, was acquired by Count Palatine Georges-Jean I from Veldenz in 1584. He introduced the Reform to the area in 1589. The Rothau and Waldersbach parishes were from that point on under the control of the Lutheran Church. Subsequent to the return of Alsace to the Kingdom France, administrative directives required from 1724 on that the Catholics and the Protestants of Rothau share the same church. This regime, referred to as “simultaneum”, was practiced in all Alsatian towns where the two faiths coexisted. A Lutheran Church was nonetheless built in 1863 based on blueprints drawn up by Louis-Michel Boltz, an architect from Colmar. He had to deal with the topographical constraints of the building location (a narrow, rocky hillside plot) and designed a building in the bedrock with a lower level which has the effect of making the neorenaissance façade appear massive. However the distinctive feature of this unique building lies above all in the design of the interior in the form of a semi-circle with a gallery up above it, making the best possible use of the narrow space. It was because of this same constraint that the architect designed an unusual structure on which the altar, the pulpit and the 1867 StiehrMockers organ are vertically aligned.