Visitation of the Virgin Mary (Aschaffenburg)
The pilgrimage church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary , commonly known as the sand church - "Ecclesia ad album Lilium - Church of the White Lily" is a votive church in Aschaffenburg and a pilgrimage church on Route 1 - Westschleife, Station 9, of the Franconian Marienweg.
The Sand Church has a special position among the Catholic churches in Aschaffenburg. It is neither a parish church nor a monastery church . As a votive church , it was praised and built in honor of the Mother of Sorrows .
history
In an interest deed from 1431 a “ Heyligen Hues in front of Sant Porthen ” is mentioned, another deed about the sand church from 1508 deals with the foundation of an altar. There is no reliable information about the origin of the image of grace . According to the legend, when the area in which the sand church stands was still wooded, a “foreign warrior” or a local shepherd found a white-flowering lily, the location of which was unusual at this point. When trying to dig up the flower and transplant it into the garden at home, he found the image of the painful Mother of God instead of the root. With a document dated May 27, 1517, the council of the city of Aschaffenburg asked Cardinal Albrecht von Brandenburg to approve a chapel foundation by council and citizens " under the sand gate ". There was already a wayside shrine “ about many years ago ”, which they now want to “ consecrate and gracefully ” by building a chapel including an altar . This chapel “To the White Lily” was to be endowed with three masses per week in honor of the Blessed Mother, St. Martin , St. Boniface and the Holy Cross . The owner of the altar should be the Aschaffenburg citizen's son Johann Faust and the right of presentation should be in the hands of the council. By decree of February 1, 1518, the cardinal approved the foundation of the citizen church and set the dedication festival for the Tuesday after Pentecost. The first public pilgrimages at the beginning of the 17th century are reported: When the plague epidemic reached Aschaffenburg in 1606, the residents of the suburb of Damm were particularly affected, over 300 people died within four weeks. The lighting of the draft fire had no effect, as the almost 100 survivors vowed a pilgrimage to the sand chapel on the Friday before Michaelmas (29 September), the so-called bright holiday. They prayed and shouted to God Almighty for the migration of the great plague, extinguished the fires in the village and vowed to God to fast and celebrate this thoughtful Friday for a holy celebration of eternal days and to commemorate the fellow citizens ripped away by the plague. When the disease spread to the Spessart villages in the following years, many sought help from Our Lady at the Sand Gate. With the establishment of the Aschaffenburg Marian Lords and Citizens Modality (today Marian Men Sodality ) in 1625, the spiritual leaders of which were the Jesuits , who were called to Aschaffenburg by Archbishop Johann Schweikhard von Kronberg in 1612 , two processions from the Jesuit Church to the Sand Chapel took place every year. This tradition is still maintained today with the cross procession on the Sunday before Palm Sunday from the Sand Church to the Capuchin Church and on the first Sunday in October from the Sand Church to the Parish Church of Our Lady .
The sand church from 1756
In 1698/99 a new, larger chapel with main and two side altars was built. As the number of pilgrimages increased in the middle of the 18th century, the city council decided to build a larger church. Veit Christoph Molitor, councilor at that time, councilor Tobis Marzell, both members of the men's sodality and councilor Johann Christoph Mühlbacher, went from house to house with the collecting box to collect donations for a new building. With the pledging of church foundation funds, the sale of church equipment and church collections, 13,556 guilders were raised. The shell was estimated at 13,668 guilders. The Oberamtmann von Amorbach, Imperial Count Johann Franz Wolfgang Damian von Ostein , a brother of the ruling Elector of Mainz, Archbishop Johann Friedrich Karl von Ostein, was impressed by the diligence of the citizens . Both were born in Amorbach, as sons of the baron Johann Franz Sebastian von Ostein and his wife Anna Charlotte Maria von Schönborn, but were very much involved through their mother, the daughter of the vice dome Melchior Friedrich Graf von Schönborn, builder of the Schönborn court in Aschaffenburg connected to the city of Aschaffenburg. With their financial help, the church could be built and equipped.
The new Aschaffenburg Sand Church, construction of which began on February 9, 1756, was consecrated on October 30, 1757 by the Mainz auxiliary bishop Christoph Nebel . The sand gate built in 1381, part of the city fortifications, was integrated into the building as a church tower. The ceiling paintings and the tower dome were destroyed in the Second World War. While the tower hood was rebuilt in 1952, the restoration of the interior decoration could not begin until 1986. The Würzburg painter Wolfgang Lenz - under the premise that the original style and the original motifs would be reused - recreated the ceiling paintings.
Furnishing
In the high altar, it is attributed to the Kurmainzer Hofwerkmeister Georg Schrantz, who also created the altar of the Amorbach church, above the rotating tabernacle on the sevenfold sealed book the Lamb of God, in the center of the middle piece a glass shrine, which is framed and surrounded by a gilded rococo frame , the miraculous image. The altar itself is a late Rococo work made of stucco marble, two columns and pilasters support the structure. Above the miraculous image, two putti hold the coat of arms of the Mainz cathedral provost Hugo Franz Karl zu Eltz, a golden lion in a golden shield divided across, with double crests above. The four altar sculptures made of wood in gray / white polimented on the left in the bishop's robe show the patron saint of the founder, St. Hugo, with his attribute, the swan, and on the right, St. Nepomuk as the Prague canon, he was the family patron of the House of Eltz. The two figures on the connecting arches are John the Baptist and St. Sebastian . The sculptural group of the Divine Trinity floats in a three-pass opening in the top of the altar . Two angels with instruments of suffering point to the middle.
The side altars, created around 1710, come from the previous building, the baroque sand chapel and are a foundation of the Schönborn family. Two Corinthian columns frame the altarpiece and in the middle of the closing segmental arch bear the alliance coat of arms of the Aschaffenburg Vice-Cathedral Rudolf Franz Erwein Count von Schönborn and his wife Maria Eleonore Charlotte Countess von Hatzfeld. In the picture in the left side altar, St. Martin, the patron saint of the city of Aschaffenburg, is shown. The statues in the bishop's robe with staff and miter are St. Erwin / Erwein and St. Francis as the patron saint of the founder. The crowning Boniface figure on the altarpiece reminds of the patron saint of the old sand chapel. The altarpiece on the right side altar shows the Holy Mother Anna and Joachim, Maria's parents. The figures of the Anna altar are St. John of the Cross and St. Maximilian von Celeia , bishop in Lauriacum (today: Lorch in Upper Austria ) also a patron saint of the founder. The crowning figure is St. Magdalena . The alliance coat of arms of the donor couple Count Maximilian Franz von Seinsheim and his wife Anna Philippina Countess von Schönborn is in the segment arch.
organ
The organ and the prospectus were a gift from the Mother of God Parish Church to the Sand Church, which was built and installed by the Frankfurt organ maker Hans Georg Steigleder in 1713/14. In 1929 the company Siemann , Munich installed a completely new organ with two manuals and a pedal as Opus 457 . Only the organ case from the early 18th century remained. Behind the prospectus is the main work, behind it the swell, and at the very back the pedal. Nothing is known about the whereabouts and use of the old organ. In 1990, Winfried Elenz from Würzburg largely rebuilt the organ: the original pneumatic action was converted into an electro-pneumatic action, the magazine bellows were removed and replaced by a float bellows and the pedal keyboard was renewed. She now has the following disposition :
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- Remarks
- H = historical register
In 2015 this instrument was dismantled and replaced by a new building in the Karl Göckel organ building workshop , the completion of which was completed in February 2016. The official inauguration took place on March 5, 2016.
This instrument has 20 registers , divided into two manuals and a pedal with a fully mechanical action mechanism. In terms of sound, this work is based on baroque models and has the following disposition:
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- Coupling normal coupling: II / I, I / P, II / P
Bells
Today's sand church bell consists of three bells, which were cast in 1952 by the Albert Junker bell foundry in Brilon . The largest one, consecrated to " Christ the King ", with the note f sharp 'bears the inscription Christ the King rule us - yes I am a king , the middle, Marienglocke, with the note a' bears the inscription Maria protect us - Queen in Heaven recorded and the third, with the tone h ', is inscribed St. Josef - everyday saint, pray for us . The old bells from 1736, 1774 and 1833 are in the Museum of the City of Aschaffenburg (Stiftsmuseum).
Oddities
In Aschaffenburg there was a popular saying that whoever “ did something” , that is, had committed a crime , “ came to the Sandkersch ”. From 1837 until its demolition in 1970 there was the "Frohnfeste", the prison that was rebuilt as a correctional facility in the Strietwald district .
The area of the former Sandkirchhof was the property of the city of Aschaffenburg and was used as a municipal wooden yard after the old town cemetery was laid out at the beginning of the 19th century. In 1835 the site was ceded to the Bavarian state, which last operated the calibration office there.
The former organ had 18 stops. In Willibald Siemann's various catalog raisonnés it is sometimes given with 17, sometimes with 20 registers.
Web links
- Franconian Marienweg Route 1 - Westschleife, Station 9 ( Memento from November 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Internet presence of the Diocese of Würzburg, Deanery Aschaffenburg-Stadt ( Memento from March 22, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ fraenkischer-marienweg.de
- ^ Aschaffenburg City and Abbey Archives - collection of documents
- ↑ Alois Grimm: Aschaffenburg house book . Volume III: Urban area between Sandgasse, Roßmarkt,… . History and Art Association V., Aschaffenburg 1994, ISBN 3-87965-063-2 .
- ↑ Carsten Pollnick: Aschaffenburg A journey through time . History and Art Association V., Aschaffenburg 2002, ISBN 3-87965-090-X .
- ^ Ernst Schneider: The sand church at Aschaffenburg. Schnell & Steiner, Munich / Zurich. (The Little Art Guide No. 1745)
- ^ Hermann Fischer: Organs of the Bavarian Lower Main region . History and Art Association Aschaffenburg e. V., 2004, ISBN 3-87965-099-3
- ↑ A house for over a thousand pipes . Main-Echo from February 26, 2016.
- ^ District court councilor Valentin Roth: The sand church in Aschaffenburg . Mission printing company Steyl, Post Kaldenkirchen, Rhineland 1931
- ^ Christian Vorbeck: The organ builders Martin Binder and Willibald Siemann . Siebenquart Verlag Dr. Roland Eberlein, Cologne 2013, ISBN 978-3-941224-02-5 . → Print of the original work list
Coordinates: 49 ° 58 '26.4 " N , 9 ° 9' 2.9" E