Maria Birnbaum (Sielenbach)

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Pilgrimage Church of Maria Birnbaum
Pilgrimage Church of Maria Birnbaum
Pear tree behind the main altar

The Catholic pilgrimage church Maria Birnbaum in Sielenbach , a municipality in the district of Aichach-Friedberg in the Bavarian administrative district of Swabia , was built in the second half of the 17th century as one of the first central buildings of the Baroque in Bavaria. With its domes and towers, the church, consecrated to the Seven Sorrows , is reminiscent of an Orthodox church .

history

Today's pilgrimage church goes back to a Vespers picture , which was carved around 1600 and was set up in a wayside shrine . In 1632, during the Thirty Years' War , Swedish soldiers set fire to the wayside shrine and threw the Vesper picture into the moor. The village shepherd of Sielenbach found it there, half burned and rotten. He placed it in a hollow pear tree, where miraculous healings soon took place, which triggered the pilgrimage to Our Dear Fraw in the Pürnbaum .

The site on which the pear tree stood had been acquired by the German Order Commander Blumenthal in 1620. In 1661, Philipp Jakob von Kaltenthal , who was Komtur der Kommende Blumenthal from 1658 and councilor of the Ballei Franconia from 1662 , had today's church built around the pear tree. Konstantin Pader was commissioned as the master builder . a. also built the Cistercian convent with the Church of the Assumption in Niederschönenfeld . The stucco led to Wessobrunner school belonging Matthias Schmuzer out. In 1668 the church was consecrated by the Freising Auxiliary Bishop Kaspar Kühner.

Initially, the pilgrimage church was looked after by the pastors of Sielenbach and Klingen . From 1670 until the secularization , priests of the German order took over pastoral care. Pilgrimage began to decline in the 18th century. In order to save the church from demolition in 1803, farmers in the area initially paid for their maintenance until the Sielenbach community bought the church. From 1867 to 1984 there was a settlement of the Capuchins in Maria Birnbaum Monastery , who looked after the pilgrimage. In 1999 the Teutonic Order returned to Maria Birnbaum. In 2001 the novitiate of the German Brethren Province was moved there.

architecture

Exterior construction

The church consists of three successive, domed structures, which are adjoined by three towers crowned with curved domes in the north, south and east. Except for the towers, all rooms have round shapes for the floor plan. The central main room rises above a circle cut to the west and east, the rooms adjoining to the east and west have clover-leaf-shaped floor plans. The square basement floors of the towers each have an octagonal structure. Wide pilaster strips structure the outer walls.

inner space

Choir
inner space
So-called apostle tower

The central rotunda is vaulted by a flat dome , which opens in its center to a round, windowed drum , the so-called apostle tower , whose niches are occupied with apostle figures from Lorenz Luidl's workshop . The walls are broken up by windows rounded at the top and bottom and structured by flat pilasters that stand on high plinths and are decorated with capitals . Puncture caps are cut into the vault, under which oval oculi open. A protruding cornice runs at the beginning of the vault .

The organ is integrated in the bulge of the west wall . The pear tree with the miraculous image originally stood here. In 1685 the main and side altars were moved to the west conche , where they were supposed to frame the pear tree with the miraculous image. In 1867 the altars were moved back to their original location in the choir in the east cone .

Piece

The rich stucco decoration was carried out around 1664/65 by Matthias Schmuzer, probably based on designs by Konstantin Pader. It combines older traditional elements such as geometric shapes, laurel bundles , angel's hermen with the later Wessobrunn motifs such as shells and snail shapes . The walls and vault are evenly covered with cornucopia, flower baskets, angel heads and leaf tendrils.

  • Stucco decor

  • West wall with organ

  • Stucco decor

Furnishing

Miraculous image
  • The dead pear tree was erected behind the main altar in 1867, and in its hollow trunk is the miraculous image, a wood-carved Pietà from the 16th century, which can be seen from the church interior through an opening under the altar sheet .
  • The main altar in black and gold is probably based on a design by the master builder Konstantin Pader and was created in 1674/75. The altarpiece depicting the Descent from the Cross was made by the Augsburg painter Johann Hehrl. The apostles Peter and Paul stand on the side consoles .
  • The two eastern side altars were also made around 1674/75. On the left altar there is a figure of St. Nicholas and on the right altar there is a figure of St. Anthony of Padua . The altar leaves depicting the stigmatization of St. Francis of Assisi (left) and the flight to Egypt (right) were used in 1895 in place of the original, no longer preserved images. The excerpts show St. Elisabeth of Thuringia (left) and the instruction of Mary by St. Anna (right).
  • The two western altars also date from the late 17th century. St. George's fight with the dragon and St. Barbara are shown on the altarpieces .
  • The oratorio grids in the side conches of the choir are also preserved from the 17th century.
  • The apostle figures in the so-called apostle tower and next to the organ come from the parish church of St. Ulrich in Eresing . They were made in Lorenz Luidl's workshop in the early 18th century and erected in 1862 to replace the original sculptures from 1664 that were destroyed in a thunderstorm.

Epitaphs

  • Two tombstones commemorate the Teutonic order priests Johannes Moses Stoss († 1682) and Hektor Seeger († 1702).
  • The grave slab of Philipp Jakob Kaltenthal († 1669), the builder of the church, is decorated with the coat of arms of his family, the Kaltenthal, the Lords of Stain , the Barons of Hohenegg and the Lords of Bubenhofen . The translation of the Latin inscription reads: Here lies the dust, the ashes and the nothing of the founder of this church .
  • The coats of arms of the Teutonic Knights Nikolaus von Sparr († 1684) and Johann Ludwig von Roggenbach are embedded in the wall.

  • Gravestone for Johannes Moses Stoss

  • Gravestone for Hektor Seeger

  • Coat of arms of Johann Ludwig von Roggenbach

  • Coat of arms of Nikolaus von Sparr

literature

Web links

Commons : Maria Birnbaum (Sielenbach)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Escape to Egypt according to postcard, Kunstverlag Peda, Passau 1996.

Coordinates: 48 ° 14 ′ 10.1 ″  N , 11 ° 58 ′ 28.5 ″  E