Piarist Church Krems
The Piarist Church in Krems an der Donau , also known as the Kremser Frauenberg Church, is the city's oldest church. The Roman Catholic Church may have been dedicated to St. Stephen , the patron saint of the Diocese of Passau .
Parish and building history
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Since 1284 there is evidence of a St. Mary's Church at this point, which was generously expanded in the late 15th century as a church for the community, not as a parish church .
An altar consecration is mentioned in 1457, the south portal bears the date 1477. The church consecration then took place in 1508, but the final completion, as two building inscriptions show, was not made until 1514 and 1515. In its late Gothic form, this church is one of the most important in Lower Austria, with rich ribbed vaults and elegant tracery forms, some of which point to the Renaissance .
Jesuits since 1616
In 1616 the church was handed over to the Jesuits , who subsequently built a monastery and a grammar school.
When it was handed over to the Jesuits in 1616, the Frauenberg tower, crowned by four corner turrets, was excluded, as it served the citizens as a city tower (fire watch, bell signal). As an indication of this, it still does not have a cross on its top, as the only church tower in Austria, but the city's coat of arms.
Piarists since 1776
In 1776 the school order of the Piarists took its place . They had founded their first branch in St. Pölten in 1749 and, after the abolition of the Jesuit order, were requested by the Empress Maria Theresa to take over the college and the church in Krems that had been vacated by the Jesuits.
Today's late Gothic building was built from 1475 to 1515 and despite the later Baroque transformation, the influence of the Viennese Dombauhütte at St. Stephan can still be clearly seen in the Gothic bundle pillars, the net and star rib vaults and the large tracery windows .
The baroque interior includes a large number of works by the important Austrian baroque painter Martin Johann Schmidt , known as the "Kremser Schmidt" . One of the most important is the high altar image of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary (1756) on the right side altar, which the founder of the Piarist order St. Josef Calasanz , and the altars on the north and south walls of the nave (St. Joseph and St. Aloysius) and the fresco at the entrance to the Franz Xaver Chapel opposite the main portal. The Jesuits had these built onto the church in 1640.
organ
The organ was built in 1893 by the organ builder Franz Capek (Krems) in an existing older case and restored in 1998 by the organ builder Kuhn. The instrument has 19 stops on register drawers, the performance and stop actions are mechanical.
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P.
Frauenberg tower
In its lower parts, the Frauenberg tower dates from the early 13th century, as the Romanesque windows show, but was raised in the 15th century and received the characteristic corner turrets. In the Baroque period , the large sound windows in the bell chamber were broken out.
The bell, known as the Piarist Bell or Kremser Pummerin , is the large town bell of Krems. It was cast by Mathias Prininger in Krems in 1702 . With a weight of 5016 kg and a diameter of 208 cm, it has the strike tone g 0 +2 and is the 18th largest bell in Austria and is now rung by hand five times a year. It bears the inscription:
- EN EGO CAMPANA NVNQVAM ANNVNTIO VANA BELLVM VEL VESTVM TONITRV IGNEM AVT FVNVS
- Loosely translated this means "See the bell I am / I never proclaim nothing / but instead war and song of joy / thunder and lightning and funeral passage".
The bell is still rung by hand today and only sounds on the highest public holidays and New Year's Eve. An angel sits on a roof turret together with a devil figure.
Next to the door to the tower entrance, a Jewish tombstone is built into the west wall of the church, which unfortunately shows clear signs of deterioration. The writing was still legible around 1900, so that it was preserved that this stone was dedicated to the memory of Rabbi Nachlifa († around 1395). Why Jewish gravestones were transferred from their cemetery to the city, where they are also located in town houses, after the community in Krems was destroyed in 1421, can only be assumed as a guess. This probably happened in the 16th century, when a humanistic theory of language saw Hebrew as the root of all languages, as the oldest language of mankind.
crypt
In the crypt under the church about 30 m³ of bones from the former cemetery are piled up and there are 68 burial niches.
literature
- Hans Frühwirth: The twin town of Krems-Stein. Your story from 1848–2000 (communications from the Krems City Archives; Vol. 30). Cultural Office of the City of Krems, Krems 2000, ISBN 3-9501219-0-0 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Information about the organ on the website of the organ builder
- ^ Jörg Wernisch: Glockenkunde von Österreich , Journal-Verlag, Lienz 2006.
Coordinates: 48 ° 24 ′ 46 ″ N , 15 ° 36 ′ 3 ″ E