Marienkirche (Königsberg in Bavaria)
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Mary in Königsberg in Bavaria is located in the Lower Franconian district of Haßberge . The late Gothic , three-aisled town parish church dates from 1432.
history
Under Bishop Gerhard von Schwarzburg , the Würzburg Monastery had acquired the city and the office of Königsberg from Duke Swantibor of Pomerania in 1394. In 1397 the construction of the church began on the foundations of an older fortification. On July 13, 1432, the church ad Sanctam Mariam and its five altars, including a St. Thomas, Katharinen, Jakobs and Urban altar, were consecrated under the patronage of the Mother of God by the Würzburg auxiliary bishop Hermann. The tower, which at the time of consecration probably only had three storeys, three bells and an emergency roof, was not completed until 1446 with a copper-clad pointed helmet and four corner turrets. The last vaults were built in the western part of the church until 1464. Stonemason's marks indicate a member of the Strasbourg building works as a master builder. In 1520 the sacristy , which was previously located in the tower, was added and in 1558 and 1599 each storey was added.
In 1449 Königsberg became an independent parish, which became Lutheran after the introduction of the Reformation in 1524. In 1528 the deanery in Königsberg followed with six parishes.
On May 28, 1640, during the Thirty Years War, imperial troops moved into Königsberg and set the church on fire. The nave and the upper part of the church tower were badly damaged, the choir less damaged. The outer walls and parts of the choir remained. The church had the church tower rebuilt in 1642 and the bells cast by Georg Werther in Coburg in 1641 were hung. The repairs to the choir began in 1645. For this purpose, wooden galleries were built into the choir room. The nave was built from 1650 in baroque forms with eight inner pillars, each eleven meter high oak squared timbers with 45 centimeters edge length. A wooden ceiling, consisting of flat ceilings in the side aisles, divided into fields by strips, and in the central nave of a barrel vault , spanned the interior. A single-storey gallery was arranged on the north side and a two-storey gallery on the west. In 1685 the church tower was given a Welsh dome as the tower roof. The altar was rebuilt from old stones. The work was completed in 1700 with a colored painting. In 1854 the interior was renovated and redesigned in white.
In the years 1898 to 1904, the Coburg state government had the Marienkirche restored and regothed according to plans by the Coburg architect Leopold Oelenheinz . The re-inauguration was on July 19, 1904. Donations and a church building lottery financed the construction project, which cost around 360,000 marks. From 1903 onwards, Oelenheinz had the Gothic interior in the nave built using old models, fragments and building descriptions by rebuilding the stone, Gothic rows of pillars and the vaults. Previously, the outer walls and pillars were secured by partially underpinning and renewing the foundations, the massive choir vaults were renovated and extensive sculpting work was carried out. A sacrament house and a small organ choir were built again . The planned replacement of the tower roof with a pointed helmet with corner towers was not implemented.
During work on the foundation, a larger grave field with skeletons was found both inside the church and around it. Oelenheinz estimated that the investigated area of 30 by 25 meters contained the remains of at least 700, but probably 1500 dead. It is believed that the mass grave could date from the time of the Sorbs raids around the year 633. After the annexation of the Free State of Coburg with the Königsberg exclave to Bavaria in 1920, the superintendent of Königsberg was abolished on January 5, 1923 and the Rügheim dean's office was added .
In 1960 the current altar by the Nuremberg artist Heinz Heiber was installed. An exterior restoration followed between 2003 and 2005.
description
The parish church , which characterizes the town, is located on the market square in the northeast corner of the Königsberg town center . Together with the neighboring town hall, it forms the municipal, ecclesiastical and urban center of the city. The late Gothic three-aisled hall church is 41.5 meters long and up to 22 meters wide. It has a retracted choir and a 46 meter high choir flank tower on the northern side. Opposite is the three-storey sacristy extension on the southern side. The tiled choir and nave roofs have the same slope and ridge height.
The choir has the width of the central nave and is closed with five octagonal sides. It consists of two yokes with four-capped cross vaults and a final yoke with six caps. The lower end of the double fillet profiles of the vault ribs form corbels on which no longer existing figures stood. The consoles are decorated with different shapes. There are roofs over the figure niches. The keystones of the vault are round discs.
The six pointed arched choir windows are three-part and filled with tracery . A richly decorated small organ gallery, originally accessible from the tower, protrudes into the choir and protrudes into the choir like a bay from the second tower floor. It was dismantled at the beginning of the 17th century. Oelenheinz had it restored. A relief below the gallery represents him. On the north side there is a sacrament house, which was demolished in 1578 and also rebuilt. In the vaulted spandrels of the choir, the paradise garden is represented by plants from the Königsberg landscape on a background of red-brown stars. In the north wall a rectangular door leads to the round stair tower and a large pointed arch door to the tower ground floor. In the south wall there is the ogival sacristy door and next to it a round building for the spiral staircase leading to the upper floors of the sacristy .
The five tiered buttresses of the choir decorate consoles, some of which are carved with figures that are supposed to symbolize human vices. Of the figures on the corbels, only a Madonna figure has survived on the eastern side of the choir. The original from 1420 is in the art collections at Veste Coburg . The figure niches are covered.
A little further down, to the left of the Madonna, a fresco shows St. Sebastian tied to a pole and shot at by two crossbowmen. On the south side, next to the sacristy extension, there is a larger, rectangular relief of the Mount of Olives prayer , framed by two small holy niches on the side.
Cross vaults span the fields of the three-aisled, five-bay nave. They were built with Rabitz . In the last, the western axis field, there is a single-storey gallery with the organ in the middle. A pointed arch triumphal arch forms the eastern end of the central nave . In the first four axes on the north side and the first three on the south side, between the buttresses, there are three-part pointed arch windows with simple late Gothic tracery. The fourth window on the north side is lower because an entrance door with an ogival portal is installed underneath. Opposite, on the south side, is the round-arched main entrance portal with a basket-arched, rectangular window above it. The design of this facade axis probably dates from the 17th century. The west side has no entrance. In the middle there is a large four-part pointed arched window with tracery, above a small rectangular window to the attic. A spiral staircase in a wall niche opens up the gallery. In addition, a round stair tower and buttresses were built during the last renovation.
The five-storey church tower has a room on the ground floor spanned by a cross vault with a niche in the west wall with a walled-in Romanesque arch profile. The other floors are wooden structures. A stone spiral staircase in a tower building opens up the two lower upper floors of the tower. The two top floors are accessible through a wooden staircase in the tower. Cornices between the floors structure the facade. An arched frieze runs under the second and fourth cornices . On the ground floor there is a rectangular entrance door on the east side with a flat arched gable, probably designed like this in the 18th century. On the first floor of the tower there are two pointed arch windows on the north side and one on the east side. The second, slightly recessed upper floor has two closely spaced, rectangular windows on the east and north sides, which are divided by arches. On the third floor above the church roof ridge there are two pointed arched windows on all sides. The uppermost, the bell-shaped storey, is set back and has a stone parapet approach. On each side there are three high, closely spaced arched windows, which are drawn in a rectangular step on the outside. The top of the tower is an eight-sided tail dome in copper with an attachment with oval windows followed by a dome, an arcade attachment, a tent roof and the tip of the helmet.
Opposite the church tower is the three-storey sacristy extension on the southern side with a stone spiral staircase in the inner corner of the choir. A rib-less cross vault and two two-part pointed arch windows are on the ground floor. The first floor was designed as a chapel. It also has a cross vault, the two pointed arch windows are divided into three parts. The second floor with two two-part pointed arch windows, designed as an archive and library, is spanned by a wooden beam ceiling. A steep gable roof with a gable field made of half-timbered construction forms the end. Buttresses placed across the corner structure the facade along with three cornices. The south-eastern pillar has a figure niche like the choir pillars.
Furnishing
Madonna
Sacrament House
former organ loft
Pulpit and choir screen
Mount of Olives Group
The once rich furnishings of the church can be recognized by the many consoles and canopies .
The renaissance lectern dates from 1697, the baroque pulpit on the southern triumphal arch pillar from the same time. It is carried by a figure of Moses who holds the tablets of the Law with the ten commandments in her hand. The four evangelists stand around the pulpit . The coronation on the sound cover is a figure of Christ who triumphs over the devil lying on the floor. In front of the pulpit is a late Renaissance style choir screen made of sandstone. The octagonal font is from the end of the 18th century. It is a donation from Duchess Alexandrine . The rebuilt west gallery adorns the baroque, painted parapet of the previous wooden gallery.
In the chancel there are 23 grave cover plates and wall epitaphs as well as a mortuary tablet from a period from 1500 to 1714. Some were originally located in the St. Burkhard's cemetery chapel and were added in 1900. A tombstone commemorates the Princely Councilor Heinrich Gottlob von Seckendorff from Oberzern, who was the Saxon bailiff at Königsberg Castle when he died in 1675.
The donated choir windows are typical specimens of glass painting from the beginning of the 20th century and designed with figurative representations in front of landscapes and / or architectural elements. The choir apex window is designed entirely with stained glass. It shows Christ standing in the middle, with Peter and Paul at his side. All other choir windows have fields or at least partial areas in slugs , hexagons or rectangles. To the left of the central window is a window with Martin Luther and the half-length figures of Philipp Melanchthon and Justus Jonas and to the right a window in honor of Duke Ernst the Pious of Gotha, who did a lot for the reconstruction of the burned church. The western window on the north side is dedicated to Duke Wilhelm , opposite is a glass painting with the figure of Frederick the Wise and the coats of arms of Worms and Augsburg.
On the wall of the north aisle there is a large painting of the crucified, including a plaque for Duke Johann Ernst . There is also a plaster model, embedded in the wall, of a bronze relief created in 1900 for the Kreuzkirche in Dresden by the sculptor Heinrich Epler . It was donated by Epler's widow in 1906 and shows the Lutheran Lord's Supper in the Kreuzkirche with Elector Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous on July 6, 1539. Epler's parents are also immortalized as citizens in the picture.
organ
Today's organ (as of 2017) on the west gallery was built by Johannes Strebel in 1904. The cost was around 10,000 marks. The instrument has thirteen registers on two manuals and a pedal . The baroque front of the front of the case comes from a previous organ that was built by the Kulmbach organ builder Matthias Tretzscher in 1660 and overhauled in 1836 by the organ builder Johann Georg Strützelberger von Untersteinach .
The late romantic sound of the Strebel organ was greatly changed in 1956 in keeping with the zeitgeist of the time. The organ is to be replaced by a new building.
Bells
The largest bell, the Our Father Bell, has a diameter of 125 centimeters and is decorated with the Saxon coat of arms. It bears the names of the mayors Natz and Foslar on the edge and the inscription: “Georg Werter von Coburg poured me in 1641. I call the pious Christians and I cry for the dead. Wilhelm Schröter, doctor and bailiff in Königsberg ”. The 11 o'clock bell dates from the same year and was also cast by Werter. It has a diameter of 96 centimeters and bears the inscription "God's word makes an eternal sound over mountain and valley". The 12 o'clock bell, with a diameter of 78 centimeters, was made in 1772 by Johann Andreas Mayer from Coburg. It is decorated with the coat of arms and the name of Duke Ernst Friedrich Karl and the name of the incumbent bailiff. The smallest bell with a diameter of 75 centimeters was cast by Mayer in Coburg in 1764.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Volkmar Botsch: The documents from the tower button of the Marienkirche in Königsberg in Franconia. Königsberg in Bavaria, 2004.
- ↑ a b c d Leopold Oelenheinz: The Marien Church in Königsberg, Franconia, and its restoration . Festschrift for the inauguration on July 19, 1904.
- ↑ a b c d Karl Eisentraut: Königsberger Kirchenführer , Königsberg i.Bayern 1981, pp. 3–27.
- ↑ a b Leopold Oelenheinz: The church ad sanctam Mariam in Königsberg i. Fr . In: Frankenspiegel by Leopold Oelenheinz, Volume 1, Coburg 1919. pp. 15–47.
- ↑ a b Leopold Oelenheinz: The restoration of the Marienkirche in Konigsberg in Franconia . In: Deutsche Bauzeitung, July 25, 1908, issue 60, pp. 407–411.
- ↑ inFranken.de Gerold Snater: Mysterious cemetery in Konigsberg is puzzling . infranken.de, June 1, 2017
- ↑ a b c d e f Paul Lehfeldt : Architectural and Art Monuments of Thuringia, Book XXVIII, Duchy of Saxony-Coburg and Gotha, Landrathsamt Coburg. Jena 1902, p. 85 f.
- ^ Reinhard Gotsmann: The Lords of Gottsmann zu Neuhaus, Thurn, Büg and Brand: History and genealogy of a Franconian noble family . Books on Demand, 2010, ISBN 9783839174159 , p. 291
Coordinates: 50 ° 4 ′ 55.2 " N , 10 ° 34 ′ 11.3" E