Village church Thalheim (Bitterfeld-Wolfen)
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The Romanesque village church in Thalheim , part of the town of Bitterfeld-Wolfen in the Anhalt-Bitterfeld district , Saxony-Anhalt , was probably built around 1150 to 1200 from heavy porphyry rock and boulders. It belongs to the parish Sandersdorf of the church district Wittenberg of the EKMD and is registered in the monument register as an architectural monument.
Architectural style
It is a late Romanesque four-part hall church as a complete system with transverse west tower, nave , altar choir and apse . The church has only changed slightly over the centuries. This makes it one of the most valuable churches in the Bitterfeld district and beyond. The church is not only the oldest building in Thalheim, but with its 24.5 meter high tower it is also the highest and can be seen from afar. The old construction method of that time was as follows: the stones that the farmers brought from their fields were stacked higher and higher and when a height was reached that could no longer be easily reached, a wooden frame was put in place from the outside and some beams are also built into the masonry. Later these beams were simply sawn off and stayed in the wall. These wood residues then rotted over the next decades, and small holes were created, which were then walled up with suitable stones, or not, because in Thalheim such a hole has been preserved for posterity on the north side of the chancel.
Romanesque structural features, such as the Romanesque joint technique in the tower and the sandstone pairs of fighters of the 3 arches are still clearly recognizable. On the outside, some remarkable individual parts are noticeable, such as the corner stones of the gable walls or the top of the apsidal roof. This point is made of stone and ends in a stone button, above which a perforated stone slab closes an opening in the gable of the chancel. The button is of course only half-round in front of the gable wall. The stone slab is square and shows a diagonal cross. This button and the stone slab give the otherwise poorly decorated building a very attractive effect. All of these profiles and shapes show that they were sculpted in the late Romanesque period. The lack of decoration and the high, narrow windows clearly show why this type of construction is also called defensive: the church building often served as a shelter for the residents of the village in times of war. The Thalheim church has preserved these characteristics of the Romanesque era like hardly any other in the Bitterfeld district. Only a few modifications changed its appearance. In the years 1891/92 there was the largest renovation: the entrances on the north and south sides of the church were walled up and moved to the west through the tower. Since then, the saying has stood above this portal: "Here is nothing but God's house, here is the gate of heaven" from the 1st book of Moses .
In 1950 the small winter church was set up on the south side, for this purpose the rows of pews had to be divided and the aisle placed in the middle. The sanctuary has a flat coffered ceiling . The stone pulpit is in it . In the apse is the Altarmensa with a plate made of red sandstone in which pre-Reformation consecration crosses are carved.
The baptismal font
After the Thalheim church burned out in 1637 and became a ruin, it was rebuilt by the Zanthiers from Salzfurth from 1660 to 1670, and in 1677 the widow Anna Helena von Zanthier, née von Lüderitz, who owned the manor in Salzfurth, was the first to give the Thalheimers a gift new equipment of the church a baptismal font . This has four special features: it is divided into a stand and hood, made entirely of wood, it is octagonal and transportable. However, the baptism must have had a fixed location in the church, because the remains of rope on the hood indicate a pulling device with which the hood attachment was lifted during baptisms. The four angel heads and the twisted legs of the baptism, decorated with grapevines, are particularly attractive. The baptism is crowned with a pine cone , which is a symbol of fertility. At the top is the dedication: "Gotte in honor of these churches for sacred use has this work as it is manufactured and set. Let the high-class bored woman Anna Helena bored von Literitz widow von Zanthier Remember her that my God in the best of Nehem x3 - 1677" .
The baptism was restored in Dessau in 1998/99.
The altar
The Altarmensa is located in the rear part of the sanctuary. The actual baroque retable dates from 1692 and was donated to the museum in Bitterfeld during the restoration of the interior in 1891/92, because the aim was to restore the church to its simple Romanesque style. The parish has tried to restore the altar to its old place. The essay came to the church workshops in Erfurt in 1998 and was completely restored there. The biggest problem with the restoration was a crack in the wood that ran across the entire reredos through the pictures. With a festive service on Ascension Day in 1999, the altar was ceremoniously given its purpose again.
The paintings on the inside of the semicircular apse represent heaven and hell, which are separated by a row of lilies. The upper picture of the altar shows the resurrection of Jesus, holding a pennant with a red cross, and four soldiers, giving meaning to the painting as heaven. The middle picture with the crucifixion of Jesus, which is in front of the row of lilies, shows the mother of Jesus, her sister Mary and John. The lily row and the white row thus get the sense of purity and the forgiveness of sins for which Jesus Christ died. The lower picture of the Last Supper with the twelve disciples against the background of the heat of hell. Jesus knew that he would be betrayed and that he was going to die; for him it must have been "hell on earth". On the predella, corresponding to the Last Supper, verse 26 from the 11th chapter of 1st Corinthians is written : "As often as you eat of this bread and drink of this cup you should proclaim the Lord's death, bit that he is coming". The symbols of the Lord's Supper, bread and wine, stretch along the edges of the altar all the way up and accompany Jesus on his path of suffering. On the left there are cornflowers and ears of wheat, on the right there are vine leaves and grapes. On the ears of the resurrection scene, the closed fruit of the pomegranate , which is also called passion fruit and in this sense is to be seen as a symbol for Jesus and the community of Christ, can be seen on the left and on the right the open and seed-rich fruit . To the left of the picture below is the Evangelist John with his symbol, the eagle, and to the right, the Evangelist Luke with his symbol, the bull. Between the lower and middle picture there is a coat of arms and shows the names of the founder and his three wives: Zanthier, Schick, Miltitz and Welchhausen. The altar is a gift from Georg Heinrich Zanthier (1638–1699) and his third wife Dorothea von Welchhausen (1643–1706). The older lower part of the altar has simple black columns with Ionic capitals, while the columns of the upper part are marbled with dusky pink and gray and have Corinthian capitals.
The bells
The two historical bells of the Thalheim church date from 1617 and 1679. According to a carving, the bell cage was installed or replaced around 1725. The suspension and clapper of the bells were only poorly repaired in 1963, so that considerable damage had already occurred to the bells themselves and to the bell cage, so that the ringing of the bells had ceased since New Year 1999. In the spring of 2001 they were repaired and rang again for the first time on Easter Sunday after a two-year break.
Before what was once the smallest bell was melted down into war materials during World War I in 1917 , the three bells formed an B major - sixth fourth triad . The big bell from 1679 was also intended to be melted down during World War II and was removed from the bell cage in 1942. Fortunately, the war ended before it melted down and the bell could be hung in the tower again in 1947.
Redevelopment
In 2007 and 2008, the village church was completely restored in its external form based on historical models. All roofs were re-covered, all parts of the facade were plastered with stone, two sandstone crosses were placed on top of the tower, the foundation was drained, the pathways were redesigned and six sound hatches were fitted into the tower. The church wall was repaired in 2001.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ List of monuments of the state of Saxony-Anhalt (pdf, 9.9 MB) - answer of the state government to a small question for written answer (the delegates Olaf Meister and Prof. Dr. Claudia Dalbert; Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen) - printed matter 6/3905 from March 19, 2015 (KA 6/8670)
Coordinates: 51 ° 39 ′ 4.7 ″ N , 12 ° 13 ′ 43 ″ E