Ottweiler
The Protestant Central Archive Saar (EZAS) has completed the indexing of its historically most important collection: The finding aid, comprising 141 pages and 541 indexing units, is available online and presents a small Lutheran regional church of the 17th-18th centuries in all its facets.
From 1640 until their extinction in 1728, the Counts of Nassau-Ottweiler resided in Ottweiler in their 16th century Renaissance castle, which was badly damaged in the Thirty Years' War. On the ecclesiastical side, Ottweiler was the seat of a Lutheran inspection. This corresponds to a present-day church district.
The visitation reports, together with their extensive accompanying correspondence, provide an insight into everyday parish life in the district of the entire county of Ottweiler. Building sketches of medieval local churches that no longer exist and inscriptions on bells that have long since been destroyed shed light on the late Middle Ages.
A large collection of sermon manuscripts is certainly informative about the theological positions of the pastors. The collection also contains the files of the Nassau-Saarbrück parish widows' and orphans' fund founded in 1728. Another early social institution was the hospital founded in 1714 to care for the poor and sick in Ottweiler. The oldest document is a letter to Count Albrecht von Nassau-Saarbrücken from 1581.
The finding aid is available at this link: Ottweiler Finding Aid as a pdf file
Source: Blog Evangelische Kirche in Rheinland