Felling Parish Church
The Roman Catholic parish church in Felling is the common parish church of the cadastral communities of Felling, Riegersburg and Mallersbach of the municipality of Hardegg an der Thaya in Felling in Lower Austria . It is dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul .
history
A church is mentioned for the first time in a sales contract from 1444. There can only be guesses as to when the first chapel or church was built in Felling on the Czech border. According to this, a chapel in the Romanesque style was built before 1300 , which was replaced by a brick nave in the Gothic style between 1330 and 1440 and was enlarged on this occasion.
On March 7, 1496, as a result of a church desecration, the church, its three altars and the cemetery were re-consecrated by auxiliary bishop Nikolaus.
Originally, Felling was a branch church of the Hardegg parish. Since masses were only read irregularly here, the Fellingers had to attend church services in Hardegg. As a result of the religious dispute and the Thirty Years' War , the Hardegg parish was not occupied for a long time and was only reinstalled in 1694. In the course of this measure, the pastor was obliged to read a mass in Felling every third Sunday of the month.
On April 8, 1751, Johann Joseph von Khevenhüller-Metsch founded the parish of Felling. This foundation was approved on April 27 of the same year by the Passau Official Office in Vienna, which was still responsible at the time . Riegersburg and Mallersbach were also incorporated into the new parish.
In an episcopal visitation protocol from 1828, the structural condition of the church is described as pathetic.
In 1844, the Khevenhüllersche Foundation applied for a suspension of payments. A commission that met in Retz approved this setting in 1852. In 1853, however, the Fellinger pastor's objection to this decision was obeyed and the decision of 1852 was repealed. Payments had to be resumed.
In 1849 the Hardegg parish received a new organ . The old organ was moved to Felling and installed here. In 1871 an organ builder from Znojmo carried out repairs . In 1896 a new organ was installed by the organ builder Franz Czapek from Krems an der Donau . However , Prince Khevenhüller withdrew his promise to enlarge the church beforehand and to have the organ loft rebuilt, and instead financed an interior restoration of the church.
The next time the church was repaired, the church windows were enlarged, decorative wall paintings with casein paint were made inside the church by the Prague painter Josef Hübsch, the roof of the bell tower was renewed and a new tower cross was made by the plumber Alois Suchy from Drosendorf . This was inaugurated on October 15, 1911.
On September 15, 1917 the church bell weighing 159 kilograms and cast in 1872 at Hilzer in Wiener Neustadt had to be delivered. In 1923 two new bells could be consecrated. On July 29th, a 148 kilogram heavy cast followed by Kutter in Vienna , and on December 8th a train bell weighing 52 kilograms followed . During the Second World War, bells for war purposes had to be delivered again. The consecration of the two new bells took place on May 26, 1949. The heaviest bell at 163 kilograms, the peace bell, was donated by those returning from the war in the parish of Felling.
On the occasion of an interior renovation of the church in 1950, the pulpit was dismantled. In 1953 an exterior renovation followed.
In 1968 work began on expanding the church. For this purpose, the bell tower had to be demolished.
description
Since its renovation, which was completed in 1969, the parish church has presented itself as a two-wing building with two long houses standing at right angles to each other and the round central apse as a connection.
The northern nave was built in the 17th century in a simple baroque style over a Gothic core and has arched windows. The ceiling was designed as a groin vault. The modern extension built in a west-east direction was designed as a flat-roofed concrete body with tall, divided rectangular windows and a small roof turret.
The now functionless former high altar from around 1730 was designed as a sarcophagus altar with ribbon decoration, the structure was built around 1700. The column retable is decorated with putti on the side , the altar sheet with a depiction of St. Anthony the Eremita was probably also made around 1700.
In the newly built wing of the church there is an embroidered representation of the Stalingrad Madonna .
On the outside of the church there is a listed baroque epitaph for Johann Michael Wartberger, the first pastor of Felling, as well as a similarly designed memorial plaque for the expansion of the church in 1968/69. In front of the church there is also a listed statue of St. Johannes Nepomuk.
literature
- Müllner Franz: Felling, a village on the border. A local history hike from prehistory to the present , self-published by the Felling municipal office, 1968
- DEHIO Lower Austria - north of the Danube ISBN 3-7031-0652-2 (1990)
Web links
Coordinates: 48 ° 51 ′ 55 " N , 15 ° 47 ′ 57" E