Maria Sondheim

Maria Sondheim

The parish and pilgrimage church of Maria Sondheim (actually Our Lady of the Rosary ) is a sacred building mainly in the late Gothic style to the southwest and a little outside the center of the town of Arnstein in Lower Franconia. The current church was started in the middle of the 15th century and is one of the most important architectural monuments in Arnstein.

Church building and architecture

The initiative to build today's church is documented in letters of indulgence from Pope Eugene IV and Bishop Gottfried IV Schenk von Limpurg from 1444 and 1445. Before that, there had already been a building on the same site that, together with the town of Arnstein, had been devastated in the First Markgräfler War .

The plans initially envisaged a three-aisled Gothic hall church. This can be seen from the buttresses visible in the eastern part of the church with the beginnings of belts, ribs and dividing arches . Together with the pointed arches of the planned straight choir closure, these were incorporated into the much simpler final shape of the building in the second half of the 15th century. The western part was then made even simpler in the second half of the 15th century, as illustrated by the smoother buttresses on the outside of the church. The completion dragged on until the beginning of the 16th century.

outer appearance

The church is located opposite Arnstein on the other side of the Wern in the floodplains and forms the center of the walled Arnstein cemetery. The nave extends on the east-west axis. The simple late Gothic exterior with its buttresses has a high, steep slate roof. A tower was built on the north facade above the sacristy, which only slightly protrudes over the pitched roof and is reminiscent of a roof turret .

Two side chapels with pent roofs in the north and south structure the long sides. A flat annex open to the outside at the northeast corner of the choir houses a group of Mounts of Olives . Christ and the sleeping disciples are executed in larger-than-life sandstone figures from the end of the 15th century. On the south facade there is a balcony built in front of the south portal above the entrance. It was probably used for the pilgrims' reliquary display in the late Middle Ages .

inner space

The current appearance of the interior was completed under Prince Bishop Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn . In 1605 the decision was made to dispense with the planned vaulted ceiling inside and to add a flat ceiling, as can still be seen today. The single-nave hall church is divided into two unequal parts by three wide pointed arches in the middle of the room: the choir on the east side and the nave with a smaller footprint in the west. In the choir there is a slightly raised platform for the altar.

Furnishing

Rows of epitaphs run along the walls on either side of the nave, mostly from members of the von Hutten family . Above the entrance to the sacristy on the north wall there is a larger than life crucifix from the beginning of the 16th century.

On the flat ceiling of the choir there is a large ceiling fresco by Johann Philipp Rudolph, which was created in 1770 and shows the naval battle of Lepanto . In 1879 Johann Mayer renovated the ceiling fresco. From 1892 to 1893, a general renovation of the interior with neo-Gothic paintings and furnishings took place in line with the zeitgeist .

In the choir there is a simple, free-standing sandstone table in a modern style. From here you can see the three colorful church windows that surround the choir and are drawn far down. In the middle is the four-axis window that was designed by the Munich painter Brother Wilfried Braunmüller in 1954. In the three-axis windows on the two sloping sides to the left and right of the central window, lead-glass windows from the 15th and early 16th centuries have been preserved.

organ

The historic organ of the pilgrimage church was built in 1880 by the Munich organ builder dynasty Frosch and restored in 1998 by the Rensch organ building workshop . The purely mechanical instrument has 21 stops on two manuals and a pedal .

Renovation and refurbishment

From 1954 to 1960 some neo-Gothic elements and the ornamental paintings from the 1890s were removed as part of a major renovation . From 2000 the church had to be renovated, with the roof in particular causing a lot of renovation work. When the choir was redesigned between 2000 and 2002, the cross from the 16th century was hung over the altar again. In the course of this, a new, abstract altarpiece by the artist Matthias Kroth was set up, which stands out with its bright orange, yellow and red tones.

During the renovation, the miraculous image of the Arnstein pilgrimage, which has been attested for centuries, was given a more prominent place by moving from the right edge to the front edge of the altar platform. The late Gothic Vesper picture is a painted wooden figure of the Pietà and was created around 1470 in the workshop of an unknown master from Main Franconia . The history of the pilgrimage goes back to the time of church building. Even today, Maria Sondheim and the miraculous image attract a large number of pilgrims every year.

literature

• Walter Herdrich: Arnstein. Pilgrimage Church of Maria Sondheim. City Church. Hospital Church. (= Peda art guide 150). Published by the Catholic Parish Office in Arnstein. Kunstverlag Peda , Passau 1994, ISBN 3-930102-55-2 .

Web links

Commons : Maria Sondheim  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Tourist information of the city of Arnstein ( Memento from January 19, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Arnstein, Maria Sondheim: Information about the instrument , accessed on September 22, 2016.
3. ↑ Disposition on the website of the Rensch organ building company
4. ↑ Information on the renovation of the Fraunhofer Information Center for Space and Building IRB  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
5. ^ Maria Sondheim as a place of pilgrimage

Coordinates: 49 ° 58 '  N , 9 ° 58'  E