As you have probably noticed if you have been reading this blog for a while, I am interested in churches. It’s not just the architecture and artwork, but what they say about the community and the people in it.

St. Paul’s Church as seen from the castle.

When visiting the Black Forest resort town of Badenweiler I immediately noticed St. Paul’s Church. Architecturally it seemed different somehow, it seemed newer than a church should be in such an old town. I did manage to puzzle out the German on the sign though – the present building was built on the site of previous churches (and a Roman temple) but is only a little more than a century old. That explains why I didn’t look quite right for its surroundings.

Its age explains why I didn’t feel the need to take any pictures when I went in to take a look. It was pretty much simple and functional. I might have snapped one frame, but I was worried the sound of the camera shutter might disturb the person I saw praying at the back of the church.

Roman paving stones in the church yard.

It’s a small town and the church does seem to be the most prominent building, after the castle of course. That in itself is food for thought – which should take the most important place in a community, the temporal or the spiritual?

Or maybe that is no longer an issue – the very idea of a city being dominated by its houses of worship seems somewhat ludicrous by today’s standards. Maybe that is one of the reasons why modern urban architecture seems at times so bland and lifeless.

St. Paul’s doesn’t have the grandeur that it would have had f it had been built a few centuries earlier, but I found it quite pleasant to visit.