Christ the King bell

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The Christ the King Bell is a cast bronze church bell in the St. Stephen's Church in Westerhüsen in Magdeburg .

layout

The bell was cast in 1523 by the Magdeburg bell caster Klaus Backmeister for St. Stephen's Church and is one of the oldest church bells in Magdeburg. At the same time it was one of the last work of the master baker. No other works by Backmeister are known after 1523. The bell is tuned to A sharp and weighs 550 kilograms. The diameter is 96 cm, the height, measured from the lower edge of the knockout ring to the upper edge of the hood, 80 cm. The bell has six little decorated crown brackets with a smooth hood for hanging in the bell cage.

An inscription in Gothic minuscule runs around the upper edge between two simple lines of lines :

anno do [mi] ni MCCCCCXXIII o rex glorie XPe veni c [um] pace sancta maria ora pro nobis (German: In the year of the Lord 1523. O King of glory, Christ, come with peace. Holy Mary, pray for us. )

The name of the bell goes back to this inscription. At the beginning and at the end of the inscription there is a medallion with a half-length portrait of the bishop. On one side of the jacket there is a hardly recognizable, seven cm high image of the crucified Christ. On the other side is a well-preserved picture of Maria with the child in a ray of light.

There is also an inscription in Magdeburg dialect between two bands of lines on the lower edge of the bell , whereby the distance between the individual words is very large:

clawes backmester van magdeborch

Between the beginning and the end of the inscription, Mary with the child is depicted in a medallion.

Both the upper inscription and the jewelry make the bell appear to be typically Catholic . The Reformation was only introduced in Magdeburg one year after the bell was cast .

Bell on belfry in 1955

history

The bell, along with three other bells, was part of the ringing of St. Stephen's Church in Westerhüsen in the 16th century. During the siege of nearby Magdeburg during the Schmalkaldic War , all four bells were stolen from the church and taken away in 1551. While the other bells remained gone, the Westerhüsenern managed to find the whereabouts of the Christ the King bell. It was bought back for ten guilders from a Hansen Becker zum Saltza . A record of the general church visit of April 18, 1564 reports on this process, which is also the first documentary mention of the bell.

During the First World War, two other newly acquired bells from the Stephanuskirche had to be handed in for armament purposes, the Christ the King bell remained in the church tower. During the Second World War , however, the Christ the King's bell was also drawn in and taken from the church tower on December 31, 1941 to melt it down. The bell was classified as a so-called C-bell, but this no longer protected against recycling. The city of Magdeburg under Mayor Fritz Markmann then campaigned for the Christ the King bell to be classified as a D bell and thus in the highest level. It was then actually handed over to the Magdeburg Cultural History Museum . While the St. Stephen's Church was badly damaged in a bombing raid on February 14, 1945, the bell remained undamaged.

At the beginning of 1946 the bell returned again and was rung on a belfry in the parish garden. In January 1947, the bell's crown broke off. However, the damage could be repaired. After the damaged church tower had been repaired, the bell was later returned to its original place.

Reports that the Christ the King's bell hung temporarily in the steeple of St. Andrew's Church in Cracau are based on a mix-up. The bell there was also made in 1523 and was also confiscated during the war. However, it comes from the parish of Neudorf in the district of Schwerin (Warthe) and came to Cracau from the Hamburg bell camp .

literature

  • Friedrich Großhennig, Ortschronik von Westerhüsen in the Magdeburg-SO district , manuscript in the Magdeburg city archive, signature 80 / 1035n, page 13 ff.
  • The St. Stephanus bells in the municipal newspaper Magdeburg-Westerhüsen, 10th year, No. 9, September 1933

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The St. Stephanusblocken in the municipal newspaper Magdeburg-Westerhüsen, 10th year, No. 9, September 1933
  2. ↑ All sorts of things from eleven centuries , Evangelisches Gemeindeblatt Magdeburg-Westerhüsen, 1942
  3. ↑ Großhennig, Ortschronik von Westerhüsen , page 18

Coordinates: 52 ° 3 ′ 55.6 "  N , 11 ° 40 ′ 43.4"  E