Marienkirche (stilts)
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. Mary is located in Stelzen , a district of the town of Eisfeld in the Hildburghausen district ( Thuringia ), next to the Itz spring . The core of the listed building dates from the 14th century.
history
The Marienkirche goes back to a pilgrimage site at the Itzquelle and Itzgrotte. Parts of the church, such as the sacristy with a ribless cross vault , date back to the 14th century. The year 1467 is documented for an expansion project. The Reformation was introduced in 1524/25 and after the Thirty Years War Stelzen finally lost its importance as a place of pilgrimage .
layout
The late Gothic church has Gothic pointed arches, profiles and pillars. The white plastered facade is structured with sandstones. On the roof, which is covered with slate, there is a small roof turret with a square floor plan and an octagonal pointed helmet as well as an attached tower ornament. The interior, spanned by a flat ceiling, is divided into the nave and the relatively large choir with pointed arched windows with tracery, separated by a triumphal arch . The choir has very good acoustics for liturgical singing.
In addition to the sandstone font from the 16th century, the furnishings include a portrait of Pastor Rudolf Seeger, who worked after the Thirty Years' War and is buried in the choir. The pulpit on the southern triumphal pillar, the single-storey wooden gallery and the benches date from the end of the 19th century. At that time, the church ceiling and parts of the galleries were provided with stencil painting. In the early 1990s, as part of a color reconstruction of the interior, frescos from the mid-19th century were uncovered on both sides of the triumphal arch. The small pneumatic organ with eleven stops on two manuals and a pedal was built in 1911 by the organ builder Johannes Strebel , using parts of the case from the previous organ by the Hofmann brothers from Neustadt from 1868. Before that, the church had an organ by Johann Christian Dotzauer in the chancel from 1739 and one owned by the organ builder Krapp from 1673.
Two chilled cast iron bells from 1956 and a bronze bell cast in 1922 hang in the attic.
On a southern buttress there is a well-preserved Latin inscription in the stone: ANNO • MCCCCLXVII • WAL-PURGIS • IS • DOCUMENTED • Diß • BAW • MARIA • (In 1467, on the day of Walpurgis, this construction began in honor of Mary). Underneath there is a sundial with a special feature. The hour digits 5 to 12 and 1 to 4 arranged in a semicircle were worked into the sandstone by the stonemasons as so-called spar characters, also called Styrian numerals or carpenter's numbers.
literature
- Joachim Neubert, Günter Stammberger, Bernhard Grossmann, Martin Hoffmann: The churches in the district Hildburghausen ... none other than the house of God - the gate of heaven ... . Verlag Frankenschwelle, Hildburghausen 2006, ISBN 3-86180-174-4 , p. 274.
Web links
- Church information on the parish website
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cultural development concept for the model region of the Hildburghausen and Sonneberg districts . October 2014, p. 30 ( pdf ).
- ↑ The organ in the Stelzener Kirche on the church district's website.
Coordinates: 50 ° 26 ′ 32.5 ″ N , 10 ° 59 ′ 27.9 ″ E