Fortified church Almen
The fortified church Almen is a fortified church in Transylvania (today in Romania ) that was built by the Transylvanian Saxons of the village of Almen (today Alma Vii ).
church
The relatively small hall church was built at the beginning of the 14th century without a bell tower. This early dating is mainly due to the semicircular triumphal arch made of sandstone. The walls of the hall and choir are supported by buttresses.
In the end of the choir there are still three narrow Gothic tracery windows.
At the beginning of the 16th century the church was rebuilt for defense. Two more storeys are being built above the choir, the upper storey is cantilevered on profiled consoles, between which casting holes have been left.
In 1845 the cross vault of the choir was replaced by a flat ceiling.
Furnishing
Classicist altar from 1852 with an image of Christ, flanked by four Corinthian columns and covered by a canopy; the baptismal font and pulpit are stylistically the same as the altar.
The organ with 11 registers from 1791 comes from the workshop of Andreas Eithel / Kronstadt.
The south tower is the bell tower. The middle bell dates from the 15th century, the large and small bells were cast in Sibiu in 1926 .
The fortified church
The fortified church of Almen is located on a mountain nose that slopes south-west towards the village. The irregular polygon of the Bering is reinforced by four towers in the four cardinal directions. The five-storey gate tower in the east has a cantilevered parapet walkway, including three storeys with mouth slits with pivot bolt locks. The passage on the ground floor of the tower, which is now walled up, was protected by a portcullis, the sliding channels of which have been preserved.
The south tower, which is also five-story, has four bay-like niches on the fourth floor. The towers in the north and west are three-story and covered with a pyramid roof.
The curtain wall was built at the end of the 15th century. The gate tower probably dates from the 17th century.
The curtain wall was restored in 1966 with the help of the old material.
Current state
The lease for the church and fortified church with the Medias businessman Horatiu Potra was terminated in 2010. The church and fortified church were extensively renovated between April 2015 and October 2016.
Neighboring fortified churches or fortified churches
See also
- Fortified churches in Transylvania (World Heritage)
- List of places in Transylvania with a fortified church or fortified church
Web links
- Fortified churches and Saxon villages (Engl.)
- Transylvanian towns and cities on sevenbuerger.de
- List of Transylvanian-Saxon fortified churches, village churches and castles for Google Earth or Google Maps
- Control center fortified churches
- Homepage of the village of Almen in Transylvania
Sources and literature
- Hermann Fabini : Atlas of the Transylvanian-Saxon fortified churches and village churches. Volume 2 = illustrated book. Monumenta-Verlag including Hermannstadt 1999, ISBN 3-929848-15-5 (also in parallel: AKSL, Heidelberg 1999, ISBN 973-98825-0-1 ), 527 fortified churches, all known, are represented with floor plans and descriptions of the building history.
- Erwin Amlacher: Defense structure function and systematics of Transylvanian-Saxon church and farm castles. A contribution to European castle studies (= publications by the Institute for German Culture and History of Southeast Europe (IKGS). Scientific series, vol. 95). IKGS-Verlag, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-88356-159-2 .
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 46 ° 2 '52.7 " N , 24 ° 26' 2.1" E