George Church (Eisenach)
The Georgenkirche is the town and main church of Eisenach , centrally located in the southern area of the market . Martin Luther preached here during the Reformation , making it one of the oldest Protestant places of worship. Johann Sebastian Bach was baptized in her. It served temporarily as the court church and until the merger of the Evangelical Church Provinces of Saxony and Thuringia to form the Evangelical Church in Central Germany on January 1, 2009, it was the bishop's church of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Thuringia .
Building history
According to the legend, according to the historian Adam Ursinus (1524–90), the banner of St. George flew under Landgrave Ludwig III. von Thuringia fought in the Third Crusade and died in a fire in 1190 from the window of Tharandt Castle and disappeared. The Georgenkirche Eisenach was built to commemorate this event.
The church, which was first mentioned in a document in 1196, presents itself today in its basic form as a Gothic hall church , which arose from the original building from 1515. Already at the end of the 16th century and again in the 17th and 18th centuries, renovations took place, so that today it is a mixture of different epochs. The richly decorated pulpit was built in 1676, the baroque organ front in 1719. The neo-baroque tower was finally added to the previously unpowered church from 1899 to 1902. The bell house built around 1585 was rebuilt in the 1970s and has been used as living space ever since. Since the restoration in 1978, the church has shown its historically grown variety of colors and shapes. From 2011 to 2014 the interior of the church was again extensively renovated.
meaning
After the Wartburg was chosen as the residence of the Thuringian landgraves, the gravestones of their ancestors were brought from the former Reinhardsbrunn monastery to the Georgenkirche and laid in the choir room . In 1221 Landgrave Ludwig IV and the Hungarian king's daughter Elisabeth were married in the church.
After the imperial ban was imposed in the Edict of Worms , Martin Luther, already on the run from his persecutors, preached in the church on May 2, 1521. The Bach family celebrated several family events here, including the baptism of Johann Sebastian Bach in 1685. Georg Philipp Telemann played here from 1708 to 1712 . As one of the oldest Protestant churches, it is now the Evangelical Lutheran Episcopal Church in Thuringia.
In 1952 the Landgrave stones were transferred from Reinhardsbrunn to Eisenach and have since been seen in the church choir.
On October 30, 2016, the Luther Bible 2017 was officially handed over to the congregations in the Georgenkirche in a festive service with the participation of EKD Council Chairman Heinrich Bedford-Strohm and EKD Reformation Ambassador Margot Käßmann .
The grave slabs of the Thuringian landgraves
The grave slabs of the Thuringian landgraves from Reinhardsbrunn , which are now in the Georgenkirche in Eisenach, can be clearly dated to the 14th century, which shows them as subsequent creations. They must have been created posthumously after the fire of 1292. The series of Thuringian landgraves begins with Ludwig the Springer († 1123) and ends with Heinrich Raspe , the antagonist to the Hohenstaufen emperor Friedrich II.
The following sculptures can be found in the choir of the church:
- Figurine grave plate for Landgravine Jutta († 1191), wife of Ludwig II the Iron, sister of Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa
- Figure grave plate for Landgrave Ludwig II, the Iron († 1172)
- Figure grave plate for Ludwig the Springer (Salier) († 1123), Landgrave of Thuringia
- Figure grave plate for the landgrave and donor Adelheid († 1110), wife of Ludwig the Springer
- Figure grave plate for the Landgrave Ludwig III. , the pious, († 1190)
- Figure grave plate for the Landgrave Ludwig IV , the saint, († 1227), consort of Saint Elizabeth of Thuringia
- Figure grave plate for Landgrave Ludwig I († 1140) (son of the founder)
- Figure grave plate for Landgrave Hermann II (1222–1241)
(described and illustrated in detail in: Wäß, 2006, vol. 2, p. 19 ff.)
organ
The organ of the Georgenkirche was built in 1982 by the organ building company Alexander Schuke (Potsdam). This replaced a work by Jehmlich Orgelbau Dresden that had existed since 1911 . Today's instrument has 60 registers (4835 pipes ) on slider drawers . The key actions are mechanical, the stop actions and links are electrical.
The organ's prospectus comes from the organ that was built from 1697 to 1707 by Georg Christoph Stertzing based on a planning proposal by Johann Christoph Bach . With four manuals and 58 registers it was the largest organ in Thuringia at the time and had a large pedal (C to e´) and manual range (C to e´´´) for that time. In 1725 it was expanded by Johann Friedrich Wender , a. a. around a trumpet 32 '.
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- Coupling : II / I, III / I, III / II, I / P, II / P, III / P
- Playing aids : 8 electric setting combinations , crescendo roller .
Bells
A ringing made of five bells hangs in the 62 meter high tower . The Sunday bell is a casting of a previous bell from the 13th century and shows a relief of St. George. All the bells bear remarkable inscriptions.
|
No. |
Surname |
Casting year |
Foundry, casting location |
Ø (mm) |
Weight (kg) |
Nominal |
inscription |
| 1 | Holiday bell | 1960 | Franz Schilling , Apolda | 1860 | 3545 | as 0 | “The holiday bell at St. George is my name. I praise the great deeds of God. I call the church under God's word and to prayer. The regional church council of the ev.-luth. Church donated me in memory of their union four decades ago. Master Schilling in Apolda poured me in anno Domini 1960. Everything to honor the Father, Sun and Holy Spirit. Gloria in excelsis deo. The Lord has done great things for us, we are happy. Praise be to Jesus Christ. " |
| 2 | Sunday bell | 1585 | Eckhart Kucher, Erfurt | 1480 | 2000 | of the 1st | "Once sounding to those who should suffer punishment with their blood, where the horrible voice of the executioner frightens the guilty, now I sound lovely when I call the Christian community together, where the Herald of Peace shows the way to immortality." |
| 3 | Godfather bell | 1947 | Franz Schilling, Apolda | 1280 | 1300 | it 1 | “I believe in God the Father. Know that the Lord is God. " |
| 4th | Christ bell | 1150 | 900 | f 1 | “I believe in Jesus Christ. Be reconciled to God. " | ||
| 5 | Holy Spirit Bell | 950 | 550 | as 1 | “I believe in the Holy Spirit. Build yourselves into a spiritual house. " |
The ringing order is differentiated: During the prayer times, bell 5 rings in the morning at 7 a.m., bell 4 at noon and bell 3 at 6 p.m. The type of service and the degree of celebration of the day are differentiated by the number and size of the bells:
- Sundays, Maundy Thursday, Old Year's Eve, children's vespers, concerts, Easter devotions, Easter octave:
- 1. Prelude (30 minutes before): bell 3;
- 2nd chiming (15 minutes before): bells 5 + 4;
- Ringing together (at the beginning): bells 5 + 4 + 3
- Cantata service, Christmas Day, Easter Monday, Whit Monday, harvest festival, synodal service, introduction to the Oberkirchenrat:
- 1. Prelude (30 minutes before): bell 3;
- 2nd chiming (15 minutes before): bells 4 + 3;
- Ringing together (at the beginning): bells 5 + 4 + 3 + 2
- Ordination, inaugurations, Christmas vespers / Christmas mass, Christmas Day, New Year's Day, Easter Sunday, Ascension Day, Pentecost Sunday, confirmation:
- 1st chiming (30 minutes before): bells 3 + 2;
- 2nd chiming (15 minutes before): bells 4 + 3 + 2;
- Ringing together (at the beginning): bells 5 + 4 + 3 + 2 + 1 (full bell)
At the turn of the year at midnight, the full bell sounds, before weddings there are bells 5 and 4. Every September 1st at 8:45 p.m. the Sunday bell reminds of the powder explosion in Eisenach in 1810.
Bach, Telemann
In the Georgenkirche, Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 23rd . / April 2, 1685 greg. , two days after his birth, baptized. The late Gothic baptismal font from 1503 still serves the same purpose today. In his childhood Bach probably sang in the chorus musicus of the Latin school and thus also in the George Church. The organ of the Georgenkirche, which is in constant need of repair and where his great cousin Johann Christoph Bach was the organist at the time , may have shaped his impressions of this instrument. The Eisenach hymn book from 1673, used by Bach in school lessons and in the church, shows an interior view of the George Church on a copper engraved by Johann David Herlicius .
From 1665 to 1797, over 130 years, members of the Bach family worked as organists in the Georgenkirche . These were:
- Johann Christoph Bach 1665–1703
- Johann Bernhard Bach 1703–1749
- Johann Ernst Bach 1749–1777
- Johann Georg Bach 1777–1797
Today reminiscent of Johann Sebastian Bach forged on the model of Bach seal left of entrance to St. George's Church (on the right side is the Luther Rose ), and on the Bach monument of the Berlin sculptor Paul Birr (1887-1945, missing) in the vestibule the church. In 1939 this replaced the Bach monument by Adolf von Donndorf from 1884, which was originally erected in front of the Georgenkirche and moved in 1938 in front of the Eisenach Bach House . The memorial shows Bach without any musical accidents, the facial features are based on a (dubious) portrait of Bach from (allegedly) 1747. The inauguration took place at the Eisenach Bach Festival in 1939 by the German Christian regional bishop Martin Sasse , musically framed by the Eisenach Bach Choir under Erhard Mauersberger .
Georg Philipp Telemann performed church music in the Georgenkirche from 1708. On the 1st of Advent 1710 he began performing a year of cantatas based on the texts by Erdmann Neumeister , which was followed in the following years by Telemann's other Neumeister cantatas, also performed in the Georgenkirche. The George Church is therefore considered to be the "cradle of the new Protestant church cantata", as indicated by a plaque in the entrance area of the church.
literature
- Message from the St. Georgen Church in Eisenach which Ludewig V. built in 1182 in: Mixed messages and comments to explain and supplement the Saxon history, but especially the Eisenach history. Fifth collection, Eisenach 1769
- Paula Nobbe: Thorand Castle , 2nd edition, Dresden 1915
- Ernst Badstübner: St. Georgen and St. Nikolai Eisenach . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2007 (6th edition). ISBN 978-3-7954-5827-0
- Helga Wäß, The grave slabs of the Middle Ages in the Georgenkirche , in: Form and perception of Central German memorial sculpture in the 14th century. A contribution to medieval grave monuments, epitaphs and curiosities in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, North Hesse, East Westphalia and South Lower Saxony (in two volumes), Volume 2: Catalog of selected objects from the High Middle Ages to the beginning of the 15th century, Berlin (Tenea Verlag) 2006, pp. 19–31 with numerous. Fig. ISBN 3-86504-159-0
Individual evidence
- ^ Johann Burckhardt Mencke (Ed.): Scriptores rerum Germanicarum , Volume III, Leipzig 1730, pp. 1272-1273.
- ↑ Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk : Sanierte Georgenkirche in Eisenach reopened ( Memento of the original from November 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed October 27, 2014.
- ^ Revised Luther Bible handed over to congregations. (No longer available online.) MDR Thuringia, October 30, 2016, archived from the original on October 30, 2016 ; accessed on October 30, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Eisenach, St. Georgen im Organ Index , accessed on September 14, 2014.
- ↑ On the history of the organs of the Georgenkirche , accessed on September 28, 2010.
- ↑ Text booklet for the CD: "The new Bach organ of the Thomaskirche in Leipzig ", label: Querstand , page 6
- ↑ Christoph Wolff, Johann Sebastian Bach, S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2007 (2nd edition), ISBN 978-3-596-16739-5 , pp. 27, 30.
- ↑ The quote and the depiction of Birr's monument follow: Jörg Hansen / Gerald Vogt: Blood and Spirit - Bach, Mendelssohn and their music in the Third Reich. Appropriation, abuse, extermination . Bachhaus, Eisenach 2009. ISBN 978-3-932257-06-3 , p. 10.
Web links
- Bach choir of the Ev.-Luth. Parish Eisenach St. Georgen
- Clip: Ringing the bells of the George Church
- Carsten Dippel: Georgenkirche in Eisenach - Erased Bible sayings in the Nazi era . Deutschlandfunk broadcast “Day by Day”, September 15, 2015
Coordinates: 50 ° 58 ′ 27.6 ″ N , 10 ° 19 ′ 10.4 ″ E