Kilian's Church (Sülzbach)
Coordinates: 49 ° 8 ′ 51.1 " N , 9 ° 20 ′ 24.4" E
The Kilian's Church in Sülzbach , a district of Obersulm in the Heilbronn district in northern Baden-Württemberg , is a Protestant church that is considered the mother church of the Weinsberg Valley .
history
The church in Sülzbach was probably founded at the time of the Frankish conquest by the diocese of Würzburg , which was established in 742 and whose property included the valley of the Sulm and in this area extended to the Neckar . The church patron Kilian was murdered in Würzburg in 689, where he is also buried. The church in Sülzbach could be one of nine wooden churches built by Bishop Arno von Würzburg in the second half of the 9th century.
The oldest stone components of the east tower of the church date back to the Romanesque period and thus to the time when the wooden churches were expanded into walled stone fortified churches. Presumably a stone nave was also built at that time and the once much higher walling of the surrounding cemetery was built.
The church was first mentioned in 1243 and was the center of a church parish. In the high Middle Ages the Heiligkreuzkapelle in Ellhofen , the Laurentiuskapelle in Lehrensteinsfeld , the Georgskapelle in Willsbach , the church in Wimmental , the castle chapel in Weiler, the monastery church Lichtenstern and the church in Löwenstein belonged to the Kilianskirche. As a result of the reorganization of the church structures, the importance of the local mother churches was lost in favor of the rural chapters and the later church districts . The parish church of St. Kilian is now part of the Weinsberg church district .
There are no documents on the early building history of the church, so that its structural development can only be inferred from preserved fragments and from the inscriptions in the church. During the Gothic period, the old Romanesque nave was redesigned around 1400. It was raised by one or two layers of stone and spanned by a Gothic roof structure, the approach of which can still be seen today on the tower. Today's nave with tracery windows and ornate portals was built in 1619 by master builder Friedrich Vischlin from Stuttgart. Nothing is known about damage in the Thirty Years War . Since some of the furnishings such as the pulpit and the baptismal font as well as the Last Supper painting above the triumphal arch were only created in the period after the Thirty Years War, which suggests a thorough renovation of the then not very old church, damage from the war is likely . Perhaps Hanß Ramm, mentioned in an inscription from the 1650s on the wall of the triumphal arch, is the founder or master builder of the renovation. The inscription panel, which gives the year of construction 1619, was also renovated in 1686.
The walled churchyard is the original burial place of Sülzbach, but was no longer sufficient in the plague years during the Thirty Years' War, so that from 1619 the dead were also buried outside the churchyard, roughly in the area between Schulberg and Oberem Weg . The so-called inner cemetery in the churchyard was still occasionally used for burials. Around 1750, today's cemetery was created outside the village, whereupon the inner and outer cemetery near the church were abandoned. In the church itself there were also burials of dignitaries.
Above all, the steep top of the tower, which was heavily exposed to the weather, had to be repaired again and again. Repairs to the tower are documented for 1789, 1791, 1852, 1897, 1902, 1953 and 1978.
The entire church was completely renovated in 1867 and 1965/66.
description
architecture
The Kilian's Church is a single-nave hall church with an east-facing choir tower . The main entrance to the church is through the portal in the western gable side, another portal on the north side was walled up a long time ago. In the west of the nave there is a gallery on which the church organ is located. The late Romanesque tower base dates from around 1200. He has served on the south side of a small door opening and has the second and third floor loopholes , which together with the fortified surrounding wall of the church to the original system of a fortified church indicate. The current nave of the church was built by Friedrich Vischlin in 1619 , as indicated by an inscription on the west portal. A second inscription panel indicates the renovation of the previous panel in 1686.
The tower has an inscription (today largely weathered) on both sides of the small south portal. It is HIC IACET EPIOS SALO ("here rests Bishop Salo (mo)"). The inscription is still unclear today. It is believed that the inscription is a copy of an older inscription on the old wooden church, as all the bishops in question with this name lived long before the tower base was erected. The inscription could refer to the bishops Solomon II or Solomon III. from Konstanz from the 9th century, the place of burial is not known. It could also mean Bishop Adelbero von Würzburg, who was deposed by the Emperor in 1086 and died in 1090. However, no crypt was found under the church during excavations.
The tower clock has had four dials and a sundial since the tower renovation in 1978 . However, a tower clock with a sundial and dials already existed in the 18th century. In 1764 the sundial was repaired and the two dials at that time were repainted. The clockwork was renewed in 1961.
altar
The most important art treasure of the church is the entombment of Christ on the altar, carved as a high relief from linden wood , which was redesigned in 1630 from a foundation for the benefit of Captain Bonaventura Müller, who was buried in the church at the time, and set in a baroque frame. The object is 76 cm wide and 67 cm high. The scene is shown in which the body of Christ is laid by Nicodemus and Mary with Mara Magdalena, Joseph of Arimathia and Johannes Evangelist in the grave cave. The figures are carved, the cave is indicated in the background by the painted open doorway. The focus of the scene is the touch of the hands of Mary and Jesus. Although the composition is successful, the work shows a comparatively simple execution with straight folds. The work shows Neckar-Swabian influence and was created around 1480.
Other equipment
The painted coffered ceiling , the altar table and the substructure of the gallery date from the time the nave was built in the 17th century. The painting on the ceiling, the picture of the Last Supper and the painting on the window and door walls were painted over for a long time and were only exposed during the renovation in 1965/66.
The coffered ceiling consists of a total of 210 fields, which are painted with flower and tendril motifs. Although the geometric arrangement of the vegetable motifs is the same on all fields, the details of all fields are different.
The pulpit from the late Renaissance period is dated 1662 on the sound cover. The foot of the pulpit is an ornate 191 cm high column on which the octagonal pulpit is located. The parapet fields show painted depictions of the Evangelists in a strong frieze frame. The same painter also created the picture of the Last Supper above the triumphal arch, which partially covers the older scroll painting.
The font was made in 1675 on a donation from Georg Wieland, who died in 1672.
The glass painting in the choir window was designed and executed by Christian Heinrich Burckhardt in the Munich workshop in 1895 and shows the crucifixion of Jesus.
Epitaphs
The large epitaph on the north wall of the church was donated by Michael Oettinger in 1626 for his parents and his first wife. The Oettinger family was one of the wealthiest families in the area in the late 16th and 17th centuries. The mayor Johann Michael Oettinger was buried in the choir of the Kilian Church. The epitaph is designed in the style of an aristocratic epitaph with a Renaissance pompous frame. In the middle of the epitaph are two paintings with a crucifixion and a resurrection scene, underneath each of the donor families kneeling in prayer, which are described at the bottom on ornate console panels. The epitaph is crowned by a smaller biblical scene in the midst of ornaments. The author of the epitaph is considered to be the master who also designed the two stylistically matching tombs of the Lords of Gemmingen-Bürg in the Nikolauskirche in Neuenstadt am Kocher . The grave slab of the mayor Oettinger has also been preserved inside the church and was embedded in the walled north portal.
Further epitaphs in the church are that of Michael Dorsch († 1728), which shows the donor family in front of the ladder to heaven in the middle picture, as well as the epitaph of a pastor framed with baroque tendrils, which shows a crucifixion in the middle picture and above the portrait of the deceased as a round picture . Possibly the person depicted is one of the two pastors Christian Wolf († 1739) or Christof Jenisch († 1738), both of whom died in poverty and a wealthy donor would have been necessary for the magnificent epitaph, but there is no reference to this the board finds.
The grave slab of Pastor Gottlieb Wolf, who worked in Sülzbach from 1690 to 1716, was placed on the outside of the walled-up north portal.
organ
The church organ was purchased in 1970. It is already the third instrument in the Church. A first organ by the Heilbronn organ builder Schwegler came into the church in 1699 and was used until 1882, when it was replaced by an instrument from Link from Giengen, which was in use until 1966.
Bells
There are three bells in the tower of Kilian's Church. The oldest and at the same time largest bell dates from 1596 and was cast by bell caster Christof from Nuremberg. It has the strike note f 'and a weight of 1050 kg. Up until the First World War, the historic three- bell chime was completed by the middle bell, cast in 1625 by Nikolaus Martinus Campen in Stuttgart, and a small bell from 1738. The little bell had to be delivered for armaments purposes during the First World War. To replace it, Heinrich Kurtz in Stuttgart cast a bell with a striking note b and weighing 409 kg in 1937 . During the Second World War, the large and medium bells had to be delivered. The big bell was found again in Lünen in 1947 and returned to Sülzbach. For the lost middle bell, a new bell was cast at the Bachert bell foundry in Heilbronn in 1956 on a donation from Mayor Paul Schick . This has the strike tone g and a weight of 650 kg.
Beheim-atonement cross
In the churchyard, which is surrounded by a defensive wall, there is a copy of the atonement cross for the murder of Michael Beheim committed around 1472 . There is also a baroque rectory next to the church .
Individual evidence
literature
- Eduard Paulus: The art and antiquity monuments in the Kingdom of Württemberg. Neckarkkreis - inventory ; Stuttgart 1889, p. 526 f
- Erwin Dietrich: The Kilian's Church in Sülzbach with its needle-pointed church tower , Sülzbach 1981
- Christoph Duncker: View from Weibertreu. Churches in the district of Weinsberg . Verlag Wilhelm Röck, Weinsberg 1968.
- Hartmut Gräf: Considerations on the building history and the furnishings of the Kilian's Church in Sülzbach (Obersulm municipality, Heilbronn district) , in: Württembergisch Franken 67, 1983, pp. 73-93.
- Hartmut Gräf: Unterländer Altar 1350–1540 , Heilbronn 1983, p. 164, No. B 50: “Obersulm-Sülzbach, Kilianskirche - Entombment”.
- Obersulm. Six villages - one municipality. Obersulm municipality, Obersulm 1997.
- Otto Friedrich: Evangelical churches in the deanery Weinsberg - picture reading book ; ed. Ev. Deanery Weinsberg, 2003, p. 44 f
