St. Boniface Monastery Church
.jpg)
St. Bonifatius is a baroque church in Weißenohe in Upper Franconia . It was the monastery church of the former Benedictine abbey and is now the parish church of the Catholic parish. The church is located in the center of Weißenohes and towers over the place with its 45 meter high tower. The church patron is St. Boniface .
history
Due to its geographical location - Weißenohe and his monastery belonged to the " Upper Palatinate " for almost all of its 700-year existence - the abbey protruded like a foreign body into the area of the Free Imperial City of Nuremberg .
Weissenohe Monastery was founded towards the end of the 11th century by the former Bavarian Count Palatine Aribo II and his wife Guilla. After the first dissolution in 1554 and a good 100 years as a Palatinate, later Bavarian monastery office with alternating Evangelical-Lutheran, Calvinist and Catholic priests, the monastery was re-established in the 17th century. Since the old buildings largely no longer met the requirements, a new monastery and church were planned.
After the demolition of the old church, construction began on April 5, 1690 under Abbot Johann Gualbert I. The builder Wolfgang Dientzenhofer was commissioned to build the church . The altars were made by the wood carver and sculptor Johann Michael Doser , with the exception of the cross altar, which is attributed to the Asam brothers . Before its final completion, the new building was inaugurated on Bonifatiustag, June 5, 1707, by the Bamberg Auxiliary Bishop Johann Werner Schnatz (in office 1705–1723). In 1722 the church received four bells, three of them in the tower and a smaller one in the roof turret on the eastern gable. The bells were blessed on August 27, 1722.
In 1724 the church received an organ. During the term of office of Abbot Benedict II, a large monstrance was purchased for the church , which was expropriated by the state during the secularization , but later bought back by the community for 1,500 florins .
In 1777 the monastery hunter Joseph Streidel donated the so-called Wies altar, which was installed next to the Benedictine altar in 1786. A votive tablet in the monastery commemorates the founder.
On May 1st, 1803 the Weißenohe monastery was secularized. The church and the monastery were incorporated into the state with all property . The big bell was taken away because the parish could not buy it back. The bell was so big that it had to be smashed in the tower in order to be transported away.
From 1819 to 1841 Franz Xaver Athanasius Böhm was pastor of Weißenohe. He made the parish of Weißenohe his heiress. In his will he donated 300 florins for the purchase of a new bell, the rest went to a foundation in favor of the parish. In 1852 it was possible to purchase a new bell for 1000 florins with additional funds from the “Pfarrer Böhm's Foundation”. The 14 pictures of the Stations of the Cross were restored and put up again. The church painter Ronke made the ceiling paintings Nativity , Resurrection and Mission of St. Mind . The four church fathers Ambrosius , Augustine and Gregory and Hieronymus as well as the four evangelists are depicted in the vaulted caps .
In 1888 the church was extensively renovated. In 1899, with the approval of the Royal. State Ministry of the Interior the three figures of saints on the church facade are placed: above the portal of St. Boniface, flanked by Wunibald and Walburga . They were made by the sculptor Schiener from Nuremberg.
In 1926 a new organ was installed in the church by the Dietmann company from Lichtenfels, and on March 31, 1929 a new statue of the Sacred Heart was erected and consecrated. It was made by the Stoffleser company from Val Gardena .
During the Second World War, bells in Weißenohe were also confiscated. The large bell was melted down while the middle of the bells was preserved. After the war it was taken to a so-called bell cemetery in Hamburg and was returned to the parish from there in 1947. In 1949, a new big bell was added to the ringing, which had been cast by the Lotter bell foundry in Bamberg and was consecrated in Weißenohe by Pastor H. Hippacher.
In 1965/66 the church was renovated, the windows were replaced and the altars, pictures and ceiling paintings were cleaned and restored. The bells and the tower clock were now powered by electricity. In connection with the liturgical reform by the Second Vatican Council , a so-called people's altar was set up in the choir in front of the old main altar, and the baroque communion bench (the dining grill) was partially removed. The pews were renewed and in 1970 the church received heating. The statue of St. Boniface lost its traditional place and was temporarily banished to a storage room in the tower with other sculptures. For the church jubilee in 2007 St. Bonifatius returned to his original place.
In 1986 planning began for the last major renovation of the church. The costs for the entire renovation were estimated at DM 2,100,000. After static safety measures, the whole church was fumigated with wood preservatives and the entire nave was scaffolded. Ceiling vaults, ceiling paintings and stucco were cleaned, restored and damaged areas added. The altars and the statues of saints were also cleaned and restored.
In 1997, the church received a new organ for the third time in its history, a Schuke organ , which was built into the baroque organ front. This completed the complete restoration of the church.
During these 300 years of its history, five abbots, eleven pastors, five parish administrators and four chaplains worked at St. Boniface.
literature
- T Eckert: St. Bonifatius Weißenohe , online
- Georg Adam Huber: History of the monastery and the parish Weißenohe (manuscript around 1900, parish archive). In: Josef Pöppel: Weißenohe. On the history of the monastery and parish. Norderstedt 2013, pp. 103-287
- Ursula Pechloff: Weißenohe, St. Bonifatius. Former Benedictine monastery church . Ed .: Catholic Parish Office Weißenohe. Photographs, recordings Gregor Peda. Passau: Kunstverlag Peda, 1998, 22 pages, ISBN 3-89643-081-5 . (Peda art guide, No. 425)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Chronicle of GA Huber
Coordinates: 49 ° 37 ′ 47 ″ N , 11 ° 15 ′ 12 ″ E