Frauenkirche (Meißen)
The Protestant Frauenkirche in the old town of Meißen is a late Gothic hall church. It belongs to the parish of St. Afra Meißen in the church district of Meißen-Großenhain of the Evangelical Lutheran regional church of Saxony .
history
The church was mentioned for the first time in 1205 in a document from Bishop Dietrich II of Meißen as the chapel of St. Mary on the market . About 100 years later, the name Chapel of Our Dear Women St. Marien or Frauenkirche emerged. The church was subordinate to the Augustinian Canons of St. Afra. The Afrakirche was the first parish church in the city and the surrounding area. The church on the market developed into a citizen church and was baptized in 1457. After destructive city fires, a new representative building was built as a late Gothic hall church between 1450 and 1520 . In 1547 the spire was destroyed by lightning. Then the tower received its octagonal top and in 1549 the gilded tower button with weather vane.
In the interior of the church, extensive renovations (regotization) took place under the direction of Christian Friedrich Arnold between 1883 and 1884. The three colored windows in the choir, created by Wilhelm Walther (designer of the Prince's procession in Dresden) , also date from this period . The bells lost in the First World War were replaced by the Bochum cast steel bell in 1924. In the years 1878-1983 the exterior plaster and the color of the interior were renewed, whereby a compromise was sought between the polychromy of the 15th century and the version of the 19th century. In 1994, the Gothic roof structure was stabilized with the help of bracing made of carbon fiber material .
architecture
The church is a plastered stone structure, the choir consists of sandstone blocks. The three-aisled hall church consists of the short three-bay nave and a choir with a five-eighth end . Buttresses support the building, which is built on the sloping terrain, while those of the choir are partially provided with openings. The building is covered with a uniform gable roof with three mid-roofs each over the side aisles. A massive west tower with rich tracery panels comes from the early Gothic on the lower floors, the final square floor is late Gothic, has an octagonal tower from 1547 with a wide gallery and is closed with a hood with a lantern .
The interior is characterized by the slender octagonal pillars and the parallel rib vaults based on the model of St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague. The choir is closed with a rich star vault. In the south wall of the choir there is a sacrament niche with sandstone walls . The sacristy is built on to the south of the choir , above which the choir loft opens up to the choir with half a star vault. The two-bay chapel, which was added to the south of the tower around 1540, has a glass painting by a Meissen porcelain painter from around 1845.
Furnishing
The splendid carved altar dates from around 1500, the lost side wings of which were supplemented in 1929 and provided with banners. The predella shows the entombment, the coronation of Mary is depicted in the central shrine , scenes from the lives of Mary and Christ are depicted on both sides.
On the east wall of the south aisle is the painted late Gothic winged altar from around 1480, which comes from the Nikolaikirche . It depicts the Lamentation of Christ . In the south side chapel there is the former painting of the main altar, which was there from 1848–1929, depicting the Good Shepherd .
Numerous epitaphs from the 15th and 16th centuries complete the equipment. Below is a panel of the crucifixion for Hans Schauwaldt († 1496) and a panel from the Cranach School for Mayor Waldklinger († 1548) and wife († 1564), which shows the donor family and Adam and Eve in three zones next to the crucifixion scene as well as the Last Judgment shows. A sandstone disk for the Vicar Johann Kölbinger († 1532) provides Christ with a kneeling clergy under a sheet architecture represents and Christoph Walther I attributed. A writing tablet with an architectural frame made of oil stucco was made for Anna Kommerstedt, b. von Beschwitz († 1536) and depicts John the Baptist and the Lamb of God with the victory flag on the base , flanked by the coats of arms of those of von Kommerstedt and von Beschwitz.
In front of the portal there is a stone offering box which is dated after the middle of the 15th century.
Organ project with porcelain register
The organ with 56 registers on three manuals and pedal and free pipe prospect is a work of the Jehmlich company . The organ is to be restored. A new register made of Meissen porcelain is to be added, which should be visible in the prospectus by being integrated into the gallery balustrade. The idea for a porcelain register came largely from the porcelain artist Ludwig Zepner (1931–2010), who succeeded in making tunable organ pipes out of porcelain . The contract to build the instrument has not yet been awarded.
Porcelain carillon
The world's first tunable and therefore playable porcelain carillon was installed in the tower in 1929 on the occasion of the 1000th anniversary of Meissen . On June 1, 1929, around noon, the carillon rang for the first time. There was already a successful bell rehearsal in March 1929. As early as 1926, Emil Paul Börner received the order from Max Adolf Pfeiffer , then General Director of the State Porcelain Manufactory Meißen , to develop a porcelain carillon to be installed in the tower of the Frauenkirche on the occasion of the millennium of the city of Meißen Market. The stop mechanism was manufactured by Bernhard Zachariä from Leipzig and the tower clock manufacturer Eugen Hörz from Ulm. The individual porcelain bells were then tuned by the porcelain painter Hermann Dietze, who was also a trained musician. After an extensive restoration from 2002 to 2004, it again plays chorals six times a day.
The porcelain carillon consists of 37 bells and sounds every day at the following times:
- 6:30 am: Wake up, the voice calls us
- 8:30 am: Great God, we praise you
- 11:30 a.m .: The heavens boast of Eternal Glory
- 2:30 p.m .: We come to pray
- 5:30 p.m .: A solid castle is our God
- 8:30 p.m .: Praise the Lord, the Mighty King
There used to be other fixed playing times and the carillon already sounded at 6:00 a.m. Until 1971, “Praise the Lord, the Mighty King” was heard at 12:00. In addition to the chorals, every quarter of an hour a porcelain bell chimes Westminster as a prelude to the respective chime. The glockenspiel can be played using a console with a keyboard or a pin roller .
Surroundings
Immediately adjacent is the elaborate drapery gate made of sandstone, which was donated by the drapers' guild around 1600. It consists of a round arch between two Tuscan pilasters with a triglyphic cornice . There are strong swellings to the side that used to rest on the wall of the churchyard. To top it off, there is an inscription plaque with a pointed roof and an obelisk above; The guild coat of arms can be found in the keystone . The original was brought to the city museum in 1956 and a copy was placed next to the church.
literature
- Georg Dehio: Handbook of the German art monuments. Saxony I. District of Dresden. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-422-03043-3 , pp. 590-591.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Information about the organ on orgbase.nl. Retrieved December 9, 2018 .
- ↑ Information on the status of the organ project
- ↑ Jürgen Schärer: In a nutshell - porcelain for Meissen - Max Adolf Pfeiffer in honor. State Porcelain Manufactory Meissen, 2000, p. 95.
- ^ Günter Naumann: City Lexicon Meißen . Sax-Verlag, Beucha 2009, ISBN 978-3-86729-013-5 .
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 9 ′ 45.7 ″ N , 13 ° 28 ′ 12.1 ″ E