Holy Cross Chapel (Wilburgstetten)
The Holy Cross Chapel in Wilburgstetten in the Central Franconian district of Ansbach was built between 1744 and 1745 as a rococo chapel. It was built on the former Limburg castle hill. The crucified Christ inside the church came to Wilburgstetten in 1696 and was the reason for the construction of the chapel.
Castle hill
The chapel was built on the castle hill of the former Limburg. A district of Wilburgstetten still bears this name today. The Truchsessen of Limburg belonged to the von Rechenberg family , which is documented in Wilburgstetten from 1261 onwards. The Rechenberger were fiefs of the Counts of Oettingen . The Rechenberger family built a second castle, the Wilburg, on the southern side of the Wörnitz River . The place Wilburgstetten is named after this castle. You can still see the castle hill and the hill of the outer castle very well today . The hills were artificially created and separated from each other by a moat . This, as well as two other moats around both castle hills, were fed with water from the nearby Wörnitz through a canal. These two trenches are only visible today during floods.
chapel
Predecessor buildings
The reason for the first wooden structure was a cross of Christ, which can still be seen in the chapel today. In 1696 a disused cross was brought from the parish church in Ellwang to Wilburgstetten. To protect it from wind and weather, a small, simple wooden chapel was built around the cross. After the castle hill near Wilburgstetten became the property of the town of Dinkelsbühl in 1431, the town council repeatedly got into disputes. The Catholic part of the city wanted to expand the chapel at the beginning of the 18th century. The Protestant part of the council opposed this. The dispute between the two denominations about the future of the chapel hardened so that Emperor Charles VII was personally asked to settle the dispute.
Today's chapel
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Today's stone structure of the chapel was built in 1745 from donations. The new chapel is over 6 m longer than the first wooden chapel. The strongly drawn-in choir of the relatively large chapel is closed in a semicircle. The nave has a flat ceiling and arched windows . The high, all-round rectangular base has the year 1744 engraved on the east side. The corners of the building and the two risalits are concave . The building is plastered on the outside. However, the base, the flat window arches and the strongly profiled portal frames made of sandstone remained unplastered.
The side altars were made around 1760. The wooden superstructures are carved with shell decorations. Today the side altars have a newer, colorful version. The entablature was decorated with angel heads and rocaille vases. On the cartouches you can see emblems of carpentry and shepherd music; they refer to the representations on the altar leaves : the Holy Family and Saint Wendelin .
The pulpit was built at the same time as the side altars. Shell carvings can be found on the curved body and especially on the parapet. The four evangelist symbols are incorporated into the cartouches on the sides of the pulpit . The artist has incorporated angel heads and clouds on the console. The cheeks are similar to those in the Wilburgstetten parish church and the Dinkelsbühl Capuchin church. The cross in the middle of the chancel presumably dates from the 14th century.
Use during the Second World War
In the last years of the Second World War , the chapel was used as a satellite storage facility for archives from the Nuremberg State Archives . During this time, farmers in Wilburgstetter removed the cords from the files in order to use them as hostage cords for whips.
financing
A Holy Cross Foundation was established as early as 1696, and in the first year the foundation received 46 guilders through donations . That corresponds to around 2,300 euros today. In 1706/07, after the first wooden chapel was built, 103 guilders were donated.
Chapel dispute from 1705 to 1753
The Protestant mayor of the city of Dinkelsbühl did not want to simply allow the Catholic clergy to build a stone chapel on the land of the city. In his opinion, the land belongs to the entire city and should not be used by the Catholic part alone through a chapel. The Protestant part of the council also disliked the excessive religious zeal of the Catholics in general. The evangelical council cared little that Wilburgstetten was itself a Catholic. Both denominations saw a pars-pro-toto in the Holy Cross Chapel . For them it was not just about the chapel, but rather about the predominance of denominations in Dinkelsbühl.
To prevent further expansion, the evangelical councilors turned to the imperial council. In 1723 he sent an imperial commission to Dinkelsbühl. Although more than 40 witnesses were heard, the commission came to no conclusion. In 1744 the evangelical councils had the University of Tübingen prepare an expert report . Here it was concluded that the chapel must be demolished immediately. The citizens of Wilburgstetten and the Catholic council refused and continued to hold services in the chapel.
In the further course of the dispute, the Protestant councils tried to persuade the emperor himself to make a decision on the matter. It was not until 1750 that the imperial council decided to transfer the chapel dispute to the Swabian Federation for a decision .
On December 21, 1752, a comparison was made in Dinkelsbühl: The Chapel of the Holy Cross was allowed to remain standing. For this, the Protestant part of the city received permission to build a similarly large building with a bell tower in the Protestant Greiselbach . This is how the school in Greiselbach was created. The bell tower there is very similar to that of the Holy Cross Chapel. It is questionable whether the similarity of the bell towers should indicate the equality of denominations.
“Miracles” at the Holy Cross
Jesus lives!
On June 15, 1746, a woman from Dürrwangen prayed in the chapel on the way to the Nördlinger Markt. In the middle of prayer, she believed that Jesus Christ was speaking to her personally. She saw the Crucified One's tongue move as if he were speaking. She immediately reported the event to the local priest, who wanted to investigate the matter more closely with the dean of Dinkelsbühl. Word quickly got around about the “miracle” of the Holy Cross. The pilgrimages to Wilburgstetten increased suddenly. When the cross was restored in 1973, it turned out that the tongue is movable. It was probably set in motion by a draft in 1746.
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Living Christ
An old Wilburgstetter legend says that in winter the birds eat off the beard of the crucified. In the summer of next year it will grow back on its own.
One explanation for the legend could be that real horsehair serves as beard hair. These contract when it's cold and expand again when it's hot in summer.
literature
- Hans Sing: Holy Cross Chapel Wilburgstetten. Festschrift for the consecration of the organ in the Holy Cross Chapel on September 8, 1984 . Wilburgstetten 1984
- Josef Hopfenzitz: Pilgrimages between the Danube and Middle Franconia in the past and present . Lindenberg 2013 (1st edition). ISBN 978-3-89870-800-5 .
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 1 ′ 54.2 ″ N , 10 ° 23 ′ 21.3 ″ E