Dormouse chapel
The Siebenschläferkapelle in the area of the Rhön community Ebersburg in the Hessian district of Fulda is a chapel built in 1975 near the district Weyhers .
Until 1978 there was a path chapel not far from the location of today's chapel, which was moved to the Hessenpark near Neu-Anspach ( Hochtaunuskreis ) and can be viewed there as a “typical example of the religious life of the Catholic Fulda region”.
Geographical location
The Siebenschläferkapelle is located around 1 km south-southwest of Weyhers and around 70 m south of the 3258 road near the junction of a road to Rödersbach , a hamlet in the Ebersburg district of Ebersberg . It stands at about 373 m above sea level. NHN . At this point, the L 3258 connects the Weyhers district with the Ried district ; From here, a little south-southwest of the chapel, the Kreisstraße 48 branches off, which leads to the Ebersburg hamlet of Götzenloch between Ried and the Ebersburg district of Schmalnau .
The original (introductory) path chapel was located about 100 m west-southwest of today's chapel and, after the L 3258 had been expanded, it was directly on the road. It can still be clearly seen today, as the linden trees there were classified as a natural monument and thus continue to mark the square that is empty today. The location was so close to the street that the street's drainage ditch is still routed around the former chapel area.
Wayside chapel
history
According to legend, the wayside chapel was built to thank the murdering and scorching Swedes in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) because they could not see Weyher in the short distance due to a seven day thick fog. This was therefore spared from looting. The origin can be dated to 1643. The building called Heiligenhäuschen was mentioned in 1676, 1714, 1719 and 1810 in various property descriptions.
Beginning in the First World War (1914–1918), there was an annual pilgrimage from Weyhers on the hail holiday with a concluding evening prayer at the Heiligenhäuschen. At the end of the 1960s this tradition fell asleep. After that nobody took care of the building anymore and it fell into disrepair. It was only used by the Tippel brothers as a covered sleeping area. In 1973 the Weyherser Rhönklub -Zweigverein discussed to restore it "with little means". This plan was not implemented until 1977 and in a meeting at the beginning of January 1977 the sentence “This year we will clear away the holy house” was recorded in the minutes. In 1978 it was dismantled and later rebuilt in the Hessenpark at the instigation of local researcher Willy Kiefer . At this point the windows were broken, the door broken open and the dormouse sculpture disappeared.
Building description and equipment
The path chapel, only 13 square meters in size, was a half-timbered building clad with betting boards. Inside it was a small, unpretentious, baroque wooden altar with a depiction of the Assumption of Mary with the Holy Trinity. In addition, there was one (according to quote) very undemanding from a block of wood carved dormice group . This presumably comes from the former area of the parish Florenberg and there probably from a previous building of the church in Eichenzell, which belonged to the parish Florenberg as vicarie until 1785. On the lower edge of the sculpture there is a tape with the year 1744. Franz Erhard Walther describes it as a simple, colorful rural work with echoes of the Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque periods.
The rebuilt building in Hessenpark, which was opened to the public in 1995, is based on the condition of the Heiligenhaus before the First World War. The walls are painted brightly and decorated with blue stars in stencil painting . At the highest point of the vaulted ceiling there is an ocher-colored halo. On the altar there was a portrait of the Virgin Mary (Radiant Madonna), which has found its place today in the subsidiary church of the Visitation of Mary in Ebersberg . The crucifix that was originally placed above the entrance door and a porcelain dove that hung from the blue vaulted ceiling as a symbol of the Holy Spirit are no longer there. The latter was willfully destroyed (shot) during the Nazi era .
Dormouse chapel
Naming and dormouse sculpture
The name Siebenschläferkapelle has only been used since the foundation of the Siebenschläferkapelle Weyhers / Ebersberg e. V. for the building in use. This was founded in 2000 in order to complete the new building and to “promote the integration of the chapel into community life”. The name came from the reappearance of the dormouse sculpture, which had been searched for 30 years after it was considered stolen. Franz Erhard Walther claims to have found her near the original chapel in the 1960s and taken it with him. She accompanied him first to New York and then to Hamburg. When he read about the founding of the chapel association in the Fuldaer Zeitung in 2000 , he got in touch with the municipal administration of Ebersburg. Members of the association picked up the sculpture from him in Hamburg and on June 9, 2000, Walther officially handed it over to the Weyhers parish during a ceremony in the Ebersburg municipal administration.
Building description and equipment
The Siebenschläferkapelle was built in 1978 by the municipality of Ebersburg and the Fulda road construction authority. Both chapels stood next to each other for a short time. It concerns the chancel of the 1975 demolished branch church Sankt Odilia from Obernüst , parish Schwarzbach . The round arch building, made of plastered sandstone, rests on strong fighters . It is only closed by a gate to the north-west and has simple rectangular windows on both sides. The roof is covered with red tiles and is crowned by an open lantern with a tailed dome . The underside of the roof consists of a Gothic cross vault with blunt ribs and a keystone with a four-leaf clover. A block-shaped stone altar bar with an opening for relics is permanently installed . There are segment-arch niches on both side walls . The shell was not completed until 1987 due to a lack of interest from all those involved. The entrance grille was made and installed in the 1990s by a local craftsman according to his own design.
The planning of the interior design began in 2000 and was implemented in 2001. Today there is a high altar designed by the sculptor Elmar Baumgarten on the Altarmensa . The altar is made of elm wood, and two columns on the right and left form the lateral boundary. A copy of the dormouse statue, the original of which is in the parish church of Weyhers, and a copy of the Radiant Madonna, the original of which can be found in the subsidiary church of Oberrod, can be found in it on a ledge. There is also a prayer bench in the building and a desk in one of the side niches with an information folder on it. Two memorial stones are walled in to the left of the altar.
Todays use
After a pilgrimage from Weyhers to the dormouse chapel took place for the first time on May 26, 2000, this is carried out annually on the Sunday following the dormouse day. On September 2, 2001, the chapel was blessed for the first time by the then auxiliary bishop of Fulda Ludwig Schick . Another regular event is a children's church service at the chapel at the beginning of September.
Picture gallery
Location of the original wayside chapel (front; trees) with dormouse chapel (rear)
Siebenschläferkapelle: interior of the chapel
Dormouse Chapel: Details of the dormouse sculpture
Siebenschläferkapelle: Radiant Madonna
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literature
Michael Mott : The “fog miracle” by Weyhers / Wegekapelle “Heiligehüse” is now a display object in Hessenpark / Two wayside shrines were also handed over . In: Fuldaer Zeitung, Nov. 2, 1995, p. 16 (series: DENK-mal!).
Web links
Siebenschläferkapelle Weyhers / Ebersberg (official website)
swell
The Siebenschläferkapelle or also the Heiligehüse, in High German Heiligenhäuschen, near Weyhers in the Rhön , Siebenschläferkapelle Weyhers / Ebersberg e. V. , June 2004 (without ISBN). There are named as sources:
- Willy Kiefer : The little holy house near Weyhers in the Rhön (in Hessenpark number 1/1982).
- Oswin Rutz: The Siebenschläferkapelle in Rotthof .
- Erwin Sturm : The architectural and art monuments of the Fuldaer Land , Volume 1, District Fulda, 2nd edition 1989, page 938.
- Norbert Ulrich: Rescue for the holy house in the Fuldaer Zeitung , Hessische Landesbibliothek Fulda, Weyhers 020-06.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Description on the Hessenpark website (accessed on November 5, 2013)
- ↑ Map services of the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation ( information )
- ↑ Willy Kiefer in Das Heiligenhäuschen near Weyhers in the Rhön (Hessenpark number 1/1982)
- ↑ Article End of an Odyssey , Fuldaer Zeitung, June 13, 2000
- ↑ Erwin Sturm : The architectural and art monuments of the Fuldaer country, Volume 1. The old district of Fulda . 2nd Edition. Parzeller, Fulda 1989, ISBN 3-7900-0189-9 , pp. 938 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 28 ′ 39 " N , 9 ° 47 ′ 41.3" E