Parish Church of St. Rupert (Gratwein)
The parish church of St. Rupert is the Roman Catholic parish church in Gratwein (market town of Gratwein-Straßengel ) in Styria . The current church was built around the year 1200 and is one of the oldest original parishes in Styria.
history
From around 860 an older, no longer preserved church building stood on the site of today's church. This was first mentioned in a document in 1188. The present church was built around 1200 in the late Romanesque style. During the Gothic period, the nave was expanded to have three naves and equipped with small, pointed-arched windows. The presbytery was built around 1400 . From 1436 the parish was the seat of the Archdeacon of the Lower Mark. In 1466 the windows of the nave were bricked up again and replaced by today's. The church tower was also raised at that time and reinforced in the lower area. Three altars are documented for the year 1487. The south entrance and the organ choir were rebuilt in 1511. In 1607 the parish was incorporated into the Rein monastery . Around 1618 there were five altars in the church, the number of which had dropped to three by 1755. The high altar was built around 1769. The Marien Altar and the Patricius Altar were built in 1818. The wooden pulpit probably dates from the same period .
In 1743 a chapel was built on the north side of the nave, into which an altar consecrated to John the Baptist from the demolished collegiate church of Rein was placed. Furthermore, there was a picture of St. Patricius in this chapel for around 40 years. After the Second World War, the chapel was converted into a war memorial. Today the war memorial is on the west side of the church and the side chapel now serves as a baptistery.
The church has had an organ since 1765. The first - a baroque organ - with eight or nine registers was replaced in 1917 by a neo-Gothic organ from the Mauracher company with 14 registers and two manuals. This was restored in 1963 due to heavy woodworm infestation.
In 1904 the old stained glass windows, some fragments of even older stained glass windows from the mid-15th century, were sold to the Landesmuseum Joanneum and the current stained glass windows were acquired with the proceeds. During the Second World War, three of the then four bells, which were replaced in 1950, were melted down. The interior was restored in 1959 and the exterior between 1966 and 1967. As part of the interior renovation in 1998, a people's altar, a glass ambo and a baptismal font were built. In 2004 the outside was renovated and the glass windows restored.
layout
The church was built as a late Gothic hall church. The 30 meter high church tower with a tent roof is located in the northern corner of the choir and has four bells. On its northern wall there are door frames made of red marble, which come from an old connecting passage to the rectory. There are several stepped buttresses on the outside of the choir. At the end of the choir is the coat of arms of Pastor Georg Schretenberger, who died in 1406. On the outer wall there are several walled-in tombstones from the 16th to 19th centuries, such as that of the priest Valentin Suchentrunk, who died in 1508, or the coat of arms of Georg Mosers, who died in 1577. A covered, brick corridor leads from the sacristy to the rectory. It rests on two arches with the coat of arms of Pastor Erhard Kornmess, dated 1466. In the entrance to the baroque arcade courtyard , three Roman reliefs from the 2nd century were walled in, which were found near the church.
The three-aisled and five-bay nave is 21 meters long and 13 meters wide. It has a partially Romanesque enclosure wall, which was Gothic renewed at the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century . It is spanned by a ribbed vault, which ends seamlessly in eight octagonal pillars or circular services sitting on wall templates . The two-bay choir , built around 1400, has a three-eighths closure. It is vaulted by a ribbed vault with round keystones on consoles . On the north wall of the choir there is a supporting pillar for the church tower. Next to the supporting pillar is the baroque oratory . The sacristy next to the church tower has a stucco ceiling from around 1743. The ogival front arch is profiled. On the north wall of the nave there is a baroque side chapel with sloping corners, the outside of which can be dated back to 1743. The gallery in the western part of the nave extends over all three naves and rests on a ribbed vault with keystones. The side aisles have Gothic stone parapets, while that of the central nave is baroque and protrudes. A stair tower with a spiral staircase in the southwestern part of the nave leads to the gallery , which emerges as a semicircle to the outside.
Two-lane tracery windows with panes from 1904 can be found throughout the church . The old, Gothic glass paintings from the second quarter of the 15th century were sold to the Landesmuseum Joanneum . The panes in the choir were figured out by Ferdinand Koller and show the four evangelists . The entrance portal in the south, made of red marble, is profiled and braced and has a pressed keel arch and figure consoles. In the tympanum you can find Georg Reiner's coat of arms, which dates from 1511. There is a four-pass ornament on the lintel . The pointed arch portal in the west is barred and has a tympanum attached over a shoulder arch.
The baroque high altar dates from 1782 and the altarpiece showing St. Rupert was painted around 1769 in the manner of Philipp Carl Laubmann . On it stand statues of Saints Florian and Donatus as Roman soldiers, designed by Jakob Peyer and modified in the 19th century . The neo-Gothic central statue dates from 1873. The altar structure is decorated with clouds in which God the Father is represented surrounded by several angels. The two side altars were erected in 1818 and restored in 1937. The right side altar bears a baroque image of St. Patricius from 1741. On the left side altar is an oil portrait of the Annunciation by Joseph Alexander Wonsidler painted in 1854 . The wooden pulpit was erected in 1818. The organ dates from 1963 and has 14 registers and two manuals . In the side chapel there are baroque statues of Saints Benedict and Bernhard from the first half of the 18th century. Text excerpts from Psalm 23 in four different languages based on a design by Jasmin Bassa were painted on the northern wall of the chapel in 2004 . The crucifix on the front arch dates from the end of the 18th century. A statue of St. Rupert from 1873 stands above the southern entrance portal. The four chandeliers in the church were made in the middle of the 19th century. The glass ambo and the baptismal font date from 1998 and were designed according to plans by the Tritthart team of architects. In the choir are the two full-length, red marble tombstones of pastors Andreas am Stein († 1489) and Georg Reiner († 1522). In the nave you can find the coat of arms tombstone of Johann Miller, who died in 1650, which has an architectural frame.
swell
- Federal Monuments Office (ed.): Dehio Steiermark (excluding Graz) . 2nd Edition. Berger, Horn / Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-85028-439-5 , p. 144-145 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Dr. Anneliese Kümmel: History of the parish church Gratwein. www.pfarre-gratwein-strassengel.at (via Internet Archive from November 5, 2016), accessed on March 10, 2013 .
- ↑ a b c d e f g Federal Monuments Office (ed.): Dehio Steiermark (excluding Graz) . 2nd Edition. Berger, Horn / Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-85028-439-5 , p. 144-145 .
- ↑ Search for Roman stone monuments in Gratwein. www.ubi-erat-lupa.org, accessed on March 10, 2013 .
Web links
Coordinates: 47 ° 7 ′ 51 ″ N , 15 ° 19 ′ 8.6 ″ E