St. Crucis Church (Großenehrich)

View from the southeast

The Evangelical-Lutheran town church in Großenehrich , together with the town hall, is a building that defines the townscape.

architecture

The oldest part of the mighty tower of the church, built as a fortified church , dates from around the year 1000. It stands at a height of 35 m in the west of the late Gothic nave . A pointed, short hipped roof rises above the rectangular tower (10 m × 6 m) , with dormers in the form of tent roofs on all four sides. Each dormer is crowned by a pointed tower with a gold-colored ball attached. At the gable ends of the tower roof there is a tower ball bearing a cross or a weathercock , both also gold-colored. Each dormer has a small sound hole on its front . In 1958 and 1991, the tower received new roofing made of slate from a local roofing company . Below the roof, one sound hatch is set into the tower wall on the narrow sides and two sound hatches on the broad sides . Including some loopholes-like window slits on the free sides of the tower .

The nave and the choir annex are covered by a red tile roof. The roof over the choir is adapted to the three-sided construction of the choir. Four gable dormers are built into the roof of the nave on both sides.

The church is entered through the pointed arched portal in the west wall of the tower, flanked by two wall lights. The basement of the tower was covered by a cross vault until 1846 , which was removed when the stairs were installed. Until 1846 the tower could only be reached through a pointed arch door from the nave. Above today's door to the ship is the (somewhat modified) Bible verse from Genesis 28:17 : How holy is this place; there is nothing here but the house of God .

The entire building contains elements from the 14th century to the Renaissance period . The nave was rebuilt in 1510 between the 14th century choir and the tower. A complete renovation of the church took place in the years 1846 to 1851. Due to poor execution of the work, a major repair was necessary as early as 1901 to 1903. The three-sided double gallery , open to the chancel, dates from 1686, before the church only had one gallery. The upper gallery carries an organ on the wall of the tower . A stone staircase on the south-western front of the nave leads to the entrance of the gallery. The left wall of the chancel is adorned with a 3.5 m high wooden cross , the body of which is 1.5 m high. It dates from around 1500, when the church changed its name from " St. Johannis Baptist " to " St. Crucis ". It hung centrally in the ship's choir until around 1700 and then above the altar. On both sides of the choir are the grave slabs of the two knights of Tottleben , the Count's Landvogts Oswald († 1558) and his brother Hans († 1577). The Russian general Gottlob Heinrich von Tottleben (1715–1773) emerged from the von Tottleben family .

The church sky has a barrel vault from which a more than 20-armed chandelier hangs down in the middle . A similar chandelier hangs from the ceiling in the choir room, designed as a star-studded sky dome, over the pulpit gallery.

The church receives its natural light through three pointed arched windows in the chancel and four pointed arched windows on both sides of the nave.

In 1936 the church was connected to the power grid, in 1958 it received an electric organ fan and in 1963 an electrically operated bell peal. It was closed in 1989 due to the risk of collapse. After a complete renovation between 1991 and 1996, it was re-inaugurated on June 16, 1996.

organ

The organ from 1851 is a work by August Witzmann from Stadtilm behind a neo-Gothic prospect . It originally had 31 registers and was one of the largest Witzmann organs. It was later rebuilt and reduced to 24 registers. Today it is only partially playable. Many pipes are no longer included.

I main work C–
1.	Drone	16 ′
2.	Principal	8th'
3.	Dumped	8th'	*
4th	Hollow flute	8th'
5.	Viol	8th'
6th	Octave	4 ′	*
7th	flute	4 ′	*
8th.	Fifth	2 ² ⁄ ₃  ′	*
9.	Octave	2 ′	*
10.	Mixture IV		*

II upper structure C–
11.	Violin principal	8th'
12.	Wooden dacked	8th'	*
13.	Flute amabile	8th'
14th	Salicionla	8th'
15th	Principal	4 ′
16.	Metal dacked	4 ′	*
17th	Octave	2 ′	*
18th	Fifth	1 ¹ ⁄ ₃  ′	*