Scheibbs parish church
The parish church of Scheibbs is a Roman Catholic church , which is consecrated to St. Mary Magdalene and is located on the town hall square in the center of Scheibbs . It forms an ensemble with Scheibbs Castle , city wall and rectory and is one of the largest churches in Lower Austria. In 1726 the important Baroque master builder Joseph Munggenast built the Marienkapelle.
Scheibbs has been a parish since 1322, and in 1338 Duke Albrecht II donated the Scheibbs market to his favorite foundation, the Carthusian Monastery of Gaming . Thus Scheibbs became the secular administrative center of the monastery rule and the castle its center. But it was not until 1677 that the Carthusian Order began to work spiritually in Scheibbs, namely in the St. Barbara monastery church , which is located outside the city walls in front of the former Vienna Gate.
It was not until 1971 that the parish church was also looked after, but only until 1995. Due to a lack of priests in the order, the Capuchins had to give up the monastery and parish. From 1938 to 1939 Cardinal Franz König was a chaplain in Scheibbs . The church bears witness to the prosperity of the Scheibbs citizens at the height of the iron and provisions trade, it is the largest in its dimensions in the region and is therefore called "Cathedral of the Erlauftal" .
history
Already in the 12th century Konrad I von Peilstein had built a small branch church of the parish St. Leonhard am Forst . The church and palace ensemble is probably a castle-church complex from the early Middle Ages, which was built by the ancestors of the Counts of Peilstein at a strategically favorable point in the Erlauftal (crossing with the connection Waidhofen / Ybbs - Gresten - Scheibbs - Melktal) later became an integral part of the Scheibbs fortifications. In 1322 Scheibbs became an independent parish.
In 1120, Scheibbs was re-founded by Konrad I von Peilstein, he appointed Otto de Scibes as a servant who lived in the dilapidated fortress. It was the only brick building, hence the name masonry, which is still used today as the name for Scheibbs Castle. Craftsmen settled around the dilapidated fortress and a small wooden house settlement developed. In 1130 a small prayer church was built next to the fortress, in 1187 the first parish church, probably made of wood, and in 1314 the first Romanesque church made of stone with a wooden steeple, which - similar to the campanile in Italy - was free-standing.
In 1338 Duke Albrecht II donated the Scheibbs market to his favorite foundation, the Carthusian Monastery of Gaming . Thus Scheibbs became the secular administrative center of the monastery and the castle became its center, on which the centuries-old tradition as the administrative center is based.
The mighty three-aisled and seven-bay hall church was only built in its current form at the end of the 15th / beginning of the 16th century - possibly including older parts of the wall - and redesigned in Baroque style in 1645 after a fire. It was baroque, both inside and out, and neo-Gothic elements are also visible inside.
After the Kartause Gaming was dissolved in 1782 and the church was no longer property and was under the rule of the order, the church had patronage lords , industrial citizens of the city of Scheibbs, such as Andreas Töpper or Eduard Musil Edler von Mollenbruck , who also developed through structural Donations have immortalized in the church, like Eduard Musil with the wall mosaics to the left and right of the high altar.
The church was completely renovated inside and out in the 1990s and brought up to date, the roof renewed and the baroque organ renovated and expanded by the Strasbourg organ builder Kern.
The outer
The church forms a structural ensemble with the adjoining Scheibbs Castle , parts of the old city wall, the former gravedigger's house with a glazed mount of olives and the rectory. The old cemetery and the brotherhood building were right in front of the church. The church with its late Gothic foundation walls and steep gable roof shows itself from the outside in a monumental simplicity that gave it the baroque era . Only the tracery of the neo-Gothic windows in the apse give an idea of its original appearance. The sixty meter high, eight-story, Gothic, massive and almost square tower on the north side has only a sparse horizontal structure. It ends with a baroque hood with a small lantern. During renovation work in the mid / late nineties, a sundial was uncovered on the outer facade roughly in the middle of the tower . Below is a representation of Saint Florian as a sculpture in the wall.
The church is oriented in the usual west-east direction, to the west the castle adjoins, to the north it adjoins the city wall at Schöllgraben, to the east a late Gothic representation of the Mount of Olives in a baroque building. Right next to it and also next to the parish church, the rectory. It has been repeatedly expanded and rebuilt and contains elements from the Gothic period as well as elements from the Baroque period.
The inner
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It is one of those late Gothic churches in the Lower Austrian Eisenwurzen region that was equipped with a particularly rich ribbed vault . The vault rests on columns with composite capitals, which, however, date from the Baroque period. The polygonal choir of the church and the nave create an impressive, uniform spatial effect.
The Rosary Chapel or Marienkapelle on the south side of the nave is provided with stucco work and frescoes from the 17th century. The rest of the furnishings in the church, the high altar and four other altars also date from the Baroque period, they were created around 1704. The two-storey high altar from the same period forms an artistic unit with the oratorios on the side .
The altarpiece represents the church patron saint, St. Mary Magdalene , represents: seen here as the sinner from the Gospel of Luke . However, the artist's name is unknown. The four glass windows in the chancel dating from 1898 to 1899 are also dedicated to the church patroness. If you look back from the altar area into the church, you will notice the baroque organ front with the angels making music. The pulpit is extremely splendid and has as an artistic counterweight a representation of St. Nepomuk.
A tour of the church reveals remarkable baroque statues, such as the group of figures of Mary and the Angel of the Annunciation on the front columns, and a mount of olives scene and a Pietà on two rear columns . In the Baroque period, the church space was expanded by adding the four side chapels mentioned above, the Anna chapel and the Nikolaus chapel are added to the left aisle. In the latter, the upper picture of the altar contains a beautiful representation of the fourteen helpers in need.
A chapel is added to the right aisle to keep the memory of the deceased alive: the poor souls chapel. The next is the largest and most beautiful of the side chapels, the Marien Chapel, which was built by the important Baroque architect Joseph Munggenast .
Lady Chapel by Joseph Munggenast
The baroque Lady Chapel by Joseph Munggenast is a structural extension of the church space to the north and has stucco decorations and depictions of invocations of the Lauretanian litany . The image of the Virgin in the Chapel of Our Lady is late Gothic, the central fresco in the vault shows an enthroned Madonna with the baby Jesus and the sea battle of Lepanto , as the victory over Turkey on October 7, 1571 was attributed to the rosary.
The organ
The organ case from the high baroque period is one of the most beautiful in Lower Austria. It can be assumed that after the great fire in the church in 1645 an organ was installed again. The current organ was brought to Scheibbs in 1796 from the abandoned Minorite monastery in Stein . It was built by Ignaz Gatto the Younger . Over the years it has undergone a wide variety of modifications. In 1999 it was professionally restored by the Strasbourg organ builder Daniel Kern while retaining the old case and adapted to the requirements of today. It has 24 registers, 1664 pipes, 140 of which are from the old organ.
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Rosary Brotherhood
In 1643 the Rosary Brotherhood was founded in Scheibbs . The Thirty Years War , which has been going on since 1618 , leads to more seekers of God. The members of the “Arch-Brotherhood of Jesus and Mary of the Most Holy Rosary” committed themselves to certain devotional exercises and to helping others. Members were not only represented from Scheibbs, to the Ybbstal , from Purgstall, Ruprechtshofen and even Loosdorf and Waidhofen / Ybbs . Thanks to donations and bequests , the fortune grew to such an extent that in 1667 a separate chapel was built north of the parish church directly on the town hall square on the former cemetery wall. In 1782 the Rosary Brotherhood was abolished by Joseph II . It was not until 1830 that the brotherhood building and the old cemetery were demolished.
particularities
In the poor soul chapel on the right side of the church there is a touching mechanical nativity scene from 1864, created by the Capuchin lay brother Amand, the mechanical work is from Pastor Steiger from Plankenstein from 1872.
In the Anna Chapel on the left side of the church there is a special black coffin decorated with glass stones and pearls, the so-called Holy Grave . This was created by Eduard Zbitek from Neustift near Olomouc in Moravia . At that time, he delivered all over Europe and overseas, today only a few such graves are preserved. Paul Urlinger bought the copy in Scheibbs in 1865, today the grave structures such as the angel of worship and the cross are missing. Faith in the resurrection should be conveyed through the colorful light effects of the colored stones.
Left and right behind the high altar, on the walls of the apse, there are wall mosaics in memory of Eduard Musil Edlen von Mollenbruck, factory owner in Scheibbs-Neubruck, who was patron saint of the church from 1892 to 1906. The mosaics date from 1916.
Outside the church on the right side between the church building and the former grave digger's house there is a larger-than-life, glazed display of the Mount of Olives from the 17th century. The Scheibbs pastor Oswald Baumer had this representation set up for those believers who were not able to read.
literature
- Gerhard Stenzel: From city to city in Austria. Kremayr & Scheriau publishing house. Vienna 1979
- Franz Gloser: Scheibbs. Culture and leisure guide. Scheibbs 1995 (no publisher information, no ISBN).
Web links
Coordinates: 48 ° 0 ′ 17 ″ N , 15 ° 10 ′ 3 ″ E