Andreas Chapel (Leipzig)
The Andreas Chapel is a church building in its oldest parts from the 11th century in the Leipzig district of Knautnaundorf . It is the oldest preserved church on Saxon soil and since the incorporation of Knautnaundorf, the oldest preserved building in Leipzig.
location
The Andreas Chapel is surrounded by a small cemetery on Rundkapellenweg (formerly Alte Straße) in Knautnaundorf, about 12 kilometers from Leipzig city center. She is the center of the place.
Building description
First of all, a massive tower catches the eye, to which a small nave is attached a little offset. The lower part of the tower is round and has a diameter of almost ten meters. At a height of about ten meters, the tower changes into an octagonal shape of the same height. It is crowned by an octagonal pyramid-shaped roof with an inclination of around 45 °. The round part has a small door on the south side and some irregularly placed small Romanesque windows. The upper part has four larger and three small round openings evenly distributed.
The slightly higher-lying and approximately twelve-meter-long nave ends in the east with a slightly asymmetrical three-eighth end, which is preceded by four low buttresses. It has taller windows than the tower and a larger door also on the south side. While the round part of the tower under the white paint suggests quarry stone masonry, the remaining surfaces of the building are smoothly plastered.
Inside the church is divided into two parts. The historical chapel from the Middle Ages has been restored in the tower. The nave serves as a community hall.
Building history
From analogies to the remains of a chapel at Groitzsch Castle (Gurlitt 1894) and excavations in Knautnaundorf (Küas 1972) it follows that the round shaft of the tower is part of a chapel from before 1100. The similarity to Groitzsch Castle leads to Wiprecht von Groitzsch , whose wife came from Bohemia, where such rotunda churches are known from this time, so that a mansion connected with Wiprecht can be assumed for Knautnaundorf. The more detailed reconstruction showed that the round nave was formerly joined by a small round apse , which intersected on a two-thirds circle with the cylindrical structure of the nave (hatched in the floor plan). Like today, the entrance was from the south.
Towards the end of the 15th century, a church was needed for the expanding village. Therefore, the church, which had lost its stately importance in the meantime, was used, the apse was laid down and a simple Gothic hall with a polygonal finish was added in its place . Both rooms now formed a unit (see floor plan).
From 1719 to 1723 construction work was carried out on the church, which resulted from structural damage and lack of space. The previous Gothic tower addition, the appearance of which is unknown, was torn down due to damage and the octagonal shaft that still exists was restored. A baroque lantern sat on it (see picture from 1840). Inside, galleries were built and the pulpit moved into the altar (middle part of the floor plan). The windows in the nave have been enlarged.
In 1840 the small south door was walled up and the access was relocated to the west side (see floor plan) and at the end of the 19th century the baroque tower hood was replaced by a pointed one, which was only removed before the roof was renewed on the tower in 1976.
In 1869 the church received an organ from Friedrich Ladegast .
In 1870 the church got a third bell, which was confiscated during World War II. The first bell from 1516 broke in 1937, the bell bought in Lützen Castle in 1832 was given to the Markkleeberger Auenkirche in 1981 , but the Andreas chapel received the bells from the devastated church in Bösdorf . A coat of arms stone from the also devastated Eythraer church for Caesar Pflugk and his mother Agnes, née Loser, who both died in 1578, is also attached to the Andreas chapel.
reconstruction
After a lightning strike that severely damaged the spire in 1972, extensive renovation of the church was necessary. After archaeological and architectural studies had confirmed the age and the cultural-historical value of the lower part of the tower, the original characteristics of the Romanesque round chapel could also be determined in detail.
Considerations for the reconstruction of the round chapel on the one hand and the preservation of the late Gothic choir area, which is to be protected because of its historical value, on the other hand, led to a reconstruction concept designed and professionally managed by church building officer Gerhart Pasch, according to which the choir room was spatially separated from the round chapel and accessed via a separate entrance resulted in the division of the interior already described above.
By 1994 the round chapel was restored to its Romanesque interior design. The apse was rebuilt on the foundations inside the church building. The apse vault with triumphal arch, combat stones and apse window could be restored as well as two windows in the chapel, the original west gallery made of wood, the Romanesque interior wall plaster and the stone altar with natural stone slab and altar step. The other galleries and the organ were demolished and the southern entrance of the round chapel reopened.
The church has been a listed building since 1977.
literature
- Cornelius Gurlitt : Knautnaundorf. In: Descriptive representation of the older architectural and art monuments of the Kingdom of Saxony. 16. Issue: Amtshauptmannschaft Leipzig (Leipzig Land) . CC Meinhold, Dresden 1894, p. 68.
- Herbert Küas, Manfred Kobuch : Round chapels of Wiprecht von Groitzsch. Structure and history. Publications of the State Museum for Prehistory. Vol. 15. Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1977, ISSN 0070-7201 .
- Gerhart Pasch: Churches in Leipzig and the surrounding area. Schmidt-Römhild Verlagsgesellschaft, Leipzig 1996, ISBN 3-7950-3903-7 , pp. 77-79.
- Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments. Sachsen II. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-422-03048-4 , p. 456 f.
- Knautnaundorf. A historical and urban study. PRO LEIPZIG, Leipzig 1999.
- Wolfgang Hocquél : Leipzig. Architecture from the Romanesque to the present. Passage-Verlag, Leipzig 2010, ISBN 978-3-932900-54-9 , p. 257.
Web links
- Knautnaundorf, Andreas chapel near Ev.-Luth. Church district Leipzig
- Andrew's Chapel at the Evangelical Lutheran Parish Leipzig-Knauthain
Coordinates: 51 ° 15 ′ 15.4 ″ N , 12 ° 16 ′ 9.6 ″ E