Mary of Sorrows (Mühlbach)

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Chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows
Interior with altar
War memorial

The Chapel of the Virgin Mary in Mühlbach , a district of Eppingen in the Heilbronn district in northern Baden-Württemberg , is a Catholic chapel from the 19th century. It is still used today by the Catholics in Mühlbach to celebrate the service .

history

In Mühlbach there was once a branch of the Wilhelmitenkloster Marienthal in Alsace, which was however abolished in the course of the Reformation in 1543/46. Today's Protestant church emerged from the former monastery chapel . A Catholic parish was only re-established in Eppingen in 1698. The few Catholics in Mühlbach formed a branch congregation of the parish in Eppingen and attended the service there. In 1701 and 1702 the first two Catholic families in Mühlbach are mentioned. In 1768 the bricklayer Jakob Dettling moved from Salzstetten to Mühlbach and founded another large Catholic family there. In 1771 there were 35 Catholic believers in Mühlbach. In 1825 there were 66 Catholics out of 571 inhabitants. With the boom of the place in the 19th century, the number of Catholics continued to rise. Finally, the school board members Johann Dettling and Johannes Dettling gave the suggestion to build their own chapel in Mühlbach, for which they asked the Archbishop's Office in Freiburg on January 16, 1862. In the period that followed, a house collection was approved by the Eppingen District Office for the construction of the church; further funds came from church collections in the St. Leon , Bruchsal and Waibstadt chapters and from a donation from the Bonifatius Association .

The Chapel of the Virgin Mary was built in 1865 by the Catholic branch in Mühlbach, which belongs to the Catholic parish in Eppingen. The simple rectangular building made of Mühlbach sandstone was inaugurated on December 19, 1865 by Pastor Josef Herderer. The tapering portal is flanked by two slender windows. Above this there is an oculus in the gable and an open bell tower above on the roof ridge . In 1866 a bell was delivered by the Rosenlaecher bell foundry in Constance .

The congregation grew to 158 believers by 1900, after which the size of the congregation only decreased slowly, and then rapidly decreased after the First World War due to emigration due to unemployment. Despite the shrinking size of the community, the chapel was modernized with electric light in 1921 and extensively renovated in 1926/27. The chapel also received a new altar structure by Georg Lang in Oberammergau . The congregation also acquired two kneeling angels at the Heidelberg art market, who have since flanked the new altar cross. With a donation from the factory owners Otto and Emma Merz from Mössingen (Mrs. Merz came from Mühlbach), the community was able to have the decrepit turret renewed in 1939 and hang up two new bells cast by the bell foundry Petit & Gebr. Edelbrock in Gescher , named after their donors Otto and Emma were named. The larger of the two bells and the old Marienglocke had to be delivered to be melted down in 1942. A new Otto bell was added to the remaining Emma bell in 1956 .

During the Second World War, the Catholic priest Emil Thoma was arrested in 1941 and deported to the Dachau concentration camp , which marked him so much that he died a few years after the liberation. He was arrested after the denunciation by a parishioner who had reported that Thoma had allowed Poland to attend mass despite an official ban. The denunciation of the upright pastor put a heavy burden on community life in the last years of the war.

Since the number of Catholics in Mühlbach rose from 70 to over 500 as a result of the displaced persons who moved in, the chapel was expanded to the west from 1953 to 1955 with a wider choir and an annex to the sacristy . From 1948 the church had its own clergyman for the first time, when the retired Dean Theodor Pathy, a displaced person from the Sudetenland , took over the care of the community until his death in 1960.

A way of the cross cast in bronze made of six panels, created by the sculptor Gisela Bär as well as the ambo , has adorned the chapel since 1984. In 1989 the band received its first organ from Hofbauer, which replaced a simpler, older instrument.

literature

  • Wolfgang Baunach: History of the Filialgemeinde Mühlbach , in: Eppingen , Schnell-Kunstführer No. 1059, 1st edition, Munich 1976, pp. 18-20.
  • Kath. Kirchengemeinde Eppingen (Ed.): 550 years of the Catholic parish church "Our Lady" Eppingen , Eppingen 1985.
  • Karl Dettling: Katholische Filialgemeinde Mühlbach , in: ders .: 700 years Mühlbach 1290–1990 , Eppingen 1990, pp. 357–360.
  • Julius Fekete : Art and cultural monuments in the city and district of Heilbronn. Theiss, Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-8062-1662-2 , p. 155.

Web links

Commons : The Pain of Mary  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 49 ° 5 '49.8 "  N , 8 ° 54' 22.4"  E