Propstei Zella (Rhön)

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The provost cell is from a Benedictine - Abbey product derived castle with baroque church on the eastern edge of the district Zella / Rhön the community Dermbach in Wartburgkreis in Thuringia Rhon . This place was initially the official seat of a Fulda provost, later a crown property and domain.

location

The Propstei Zella is in an exposed position on an elongated hill, on which the historic town center of Zella connects immediately to the west. The castle courtyard is at 425  m above sea level. NN - thus still about 50 m above the nearby valley floor of the Felda . Neidhartshausen in the northeast, Empfertshausen in the south and Brunnhartshausen in the west border the Propstei within a radius of only 1000 m .

history

General view from the north
View from the west
General view from the south

The Zella Benedictine nunnery was founded in 1136 by Count Erpho von Neidhartshausen . The foundation walls of the original convent building can be found on the east facade of today's castle. The Thuringian Rhön has belonged to the Fulda Abbey for centuries . When it rose to become a prince abbey in 1284 , the Zella monastery became the official seat of a provost .

In the turmoil of the Peasant War , the nuns' abbey remained in existence, but was closed by the Counts of Henneberg in the 16th century . However, the provost's office and the associated settlement remained in Fulda ownership. The small community of Zella and a few farms in the area formed a Catholic enclave in the Fischberg district .

After the Thirty Years' War , Zella became the starting point for a Counter Reformation for the neighboring towns of the Thuringian Rhön. However, it failed because of the balance of power and the lack of interest of the Reich politicians. The trial of strength, the so-called Dermbach War, ended with a settlement. This episode of regional history is still present, at least through architectural evidence. Five new churches were built in the eleven parishes of the neighboring Geisa office in Fulda in the 18th century. At the same time, between 1715 and 1732, Provost Adolph von Dalberg had today's church of St. Mary's Assumption built as a masterpiece of baroque architecture . Above all, it impresses with its swinging facade with a protruding central projection that continues in the tower, sculptures of saints and portal coats of arms. In 1718, the neighboring, already heavily devastated monastery building was converted into today's Propstei, a two-storey baroque building.

The main wing has 15 window axes on the east side and two protruding towers with distinctive onion-shaped tail domes. On the courtyard side with 13 window axes in the middle is the main portal with the large coat of arms of the Fulda prince abbot Konstantin von Buttlar (1714–1726), below it on the apex the coat of arms of the provost Adolph von Dalberg with the inscription “A * C * V * W * F * V * D * P * Z * Z * 1718 “(Adolph, Chamberlain von Worms , Baron von Dalberg, Provost zu Zella 1718). In 1726 Dalberg was elected Prince Abbot of Fulda himself.

The property of the provost formed the provost office Zella . With the secularization of the Principality of Fulda, the provost's office became a secular domain . The provost building was now occupied by the domain tenant and the pastor. The last Fulda provost living in Zella was Alexander Zobel von und zu Giebelstadt . He retired to Fulda and died there around 1830. From 1803 onwards, the House of Orange received the goods from Zella as compensation. In 1806 Napoleon took possession of it and ceded it to the Prince Primate Karl Theodor von Dalberg . In 1815 Prussia received the Principality of Fulda and in the autumn of the same year left the offices of Dermbach and Geisa to the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar . In the 20th century, the provost's office was used several times, with the outbuildings in particular being run down.

A permanent exhibition on the Rhön Biosphere Reserve was opened in 2002 in the provost building, which has been renovated since 2001 ; The Thuringian administration of the biosphere reserve has been based here since 2009.

Well system in the courtyard
Heraldic plaque on the portal

use

In the castle are the rooms of the tourist information and the information point of the Rhön Biosphere Reserve as well as a local museum with a model of the castle and other exhibits on the local history.

Most of the provost house has already been renovated and now serves as the seat of the Thuringian administrative office of the Rhön Biosphere Reserve.

The administrative office has the following tasks and objectives:

  • Regional development
  • Nature conservation and landscape management
  • Public Relations and Research
  • Landscape planning / interventions
  • Geographic Information System (GIS) / Research

literature

  • Adelbert Schröter: Country by the road. The history of the Catholic parishes in the Thuringian Rhön , St. Benno-Verlag, Leipzig ²1989, ISBN 3-7462-0430-5
  • Richard Schmelz: Church guide and little chronicle of Zella , self-published, Zella / Rhön (n.d.) 22 pp.
  • Voss, Georg (ed.): Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach. District court district Kaltennordheim. The Probstei Zella , in: Lehfeldt, Paul / Voss, Georg (Hrsg.): Architectural and art monuments of Thuringia , booklet XXXVII. Jena 1911 pp. 234-236.
  • Johannes Mötsch: The Benedictine monastery Zella under Fischberg , in: Archive for Middle Rhine Church History , 53 (2001), pp. 233-257.

Web links

Commons : Propstei Zella  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Thuringian Land Survey Office Wartburgkreis and District Free City Eisenach , Erfurt 2002, ISBN 3-86140-250-5
  2. ↑ Isolde Lehmann: The Baroque Church of Zella In: Eisenacher land issue 3/4, Eisenach 1997 pp. 24-27.
  3. ↑ http://www.jahrfeier-zella.de/html/historie.html , accessed on March 11, 2011

Coordinates: 50 ° 40 ′ 25 ″  N , 10 ° 6 ′ 36.8 ″  E