St. Catherine Church (Würdenhain)

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St. Catherine

The listed Protestant Church of St. Katharina is located in Würdenhain , a district of the southern Brandenburg municipality of Röderland in the Elbe-Elster district . It was consecrated to Saint Catherine in the Middle Ages and is today the oldest and most striking building in the town of 120 inhabitants.

Building description and history

Architectural drawing by master carpenter Johann Andreas Hünigen (1747).
West side of the Church of St. Catherine, around 1910
North side of the church with the old sacristy

Even if a pastor Herrmann Sachse zu Werdenhayn appears in a document as early as 1346 , the Würdenhain Church is only mentioned 150 years later in the Meißner diocese register from 1495.

The core of the flat-roofed nave is a late Gothic hall building with a three-sided east end made of brick . On the inside there are galleries in the north and west. The nave and the so-called "old sacristy" with a barrel vault are said to have been built around 1450 using stones from the Würdenhain castle, which was destroyed in 1442.

In 1443 the rule Würdenhain came to the Bohemian nobleman Hinko Birke from Duba through buying and bartering. One of his first known official acts is the donation of a meadow to the pastor and his successors in Würdenhain, who were to commemorate the souls of him and his wife every Sunday in the pulpit.

In the second half of the 16th century, extensive expansions were made to the church, which were completed in 1577. A church tower was added to the west of the already existing nave . More stones had to be brought in for the construction. This emerges from the farmers' complaint from 1564 and from a Mühlberg official bill with a Würdenhain church bill from 1570. So for 36 groschen of bricks from Glaubitz near Riesa in 1570. The farmers of the four villages received another 28 groschen for “pushing stones out of the ground” and as a tip “driving from the stones to the churchyard”.

In 1747, under the pastor M. Johann Pöschel, who was born in Würdenhain, the church was again extensively rebuilt and the tower raised, which was also given an onion dome. The renovation work was demonstrably based on an architectural drawing by Weesenstein master carpenter Johann Andreas Hünigen . However, not all changes recorded in the construction drawing could be implemented immediately and in the planned form. So the “new sacristy” was not built until 1762 and on the east side of the church instead of on the south side as planned. The “old sacristy”, which was intended for demolition and therefore not included in the plans, was ultimately retained. An initially planned western vestibule was also not built.

The little prayer room planned on the north side for the Prieschka manor could only be realized in 1766, after the owner of the property had asked for permission to build it ten years earlier. It also turned out to be a lot easier than originally thought. Ultimately, this building did not survive to the present day and was demolished shortly before the Second World War in 1935.

The appearance of the church changed again in the 1970s. When the hurricane Quimburga hit Central and Western Europe on November 13, 1972, sometimes with extreme wind speeds , causing severe damage there, the church tower in Würdenhain was also seriously affected. The distinctive octagonal top part of the tower with the onion dome was so badly damaged that it finally had to be torn off, which also took place from December 9th to 10th, 1972.

Furnishing

Würdenhainer Altar around 1906

The organ prospectus dates from 1780. An organ has been in the church since 1771. It is known that in 1885 renovation work was carried out on the organ. The Liebenwerda pastor Heinrich Nebelsieck described it succinctly in his book Descriptive Representation of the Older Architectural and Art Monuments of the Province of Saxony, District Liebenwerda , published in 1906, "as very poor with an urn attachment". The instrument available today dates from 1927. The organ was built by the Liebenwerda organ builder Voigt (op. 69). It has a pneumatic cone drawer , a manual and nine stops . The organ is currently being renovated and the surrounding case is being restored.

The medieval baptismal font of the church is a large, shallow basin with a short shaft and wide base made of sandstone. The pulpit is from the 16th century.

There is also a two-part late Gothic winged altar from the 15th century with 45 centimeter high figures and the coronation of Mary in the center. In earlier times, the sections probably belonged to two different altars. While the lower part dates from around 1470, the time when the upper part was created is 1430. Nebelsieck described the Würdenhainer Altar in 1906 as follows:

Large winged altar with figures, in the middle the coronation of Mary between Barbara and Katharina on the left, Katharina and a saint with a needle on the right (Ursula?); in the wings above left Magdalena and Johannes Evangelist, below Dorothea and Martin, above right Urban and an unrecognizable bishop, below Laurentius and Antonius. In the essay a bishop with a church, one with a book and a cross, Helena, Mary with the child, James the Elder, a bishop and a saint, Bonifazius.

In the descriptions of the altar published below, it is confirmed once again that the figure at the bottom right is Ursula . Is corrected Nebelsiecks description so far that the figure below left Margarete represents and instead Boniface of Holy Peter can be seen.

Bells

The church has two bells. The larger bell (ø 78 cm) with the name Katharina , with an inscription, is a donation from 1516 by Hans II. Birke von der Duba († 1519) and his wife Agnes von Schleinitz (* 14 **, † 1527) ), whose jointure belonged Would grove at that time. With the two crossed oak branches and the three roses it bears the coats of arms of both noble families.

The smaller bell (ø 53 cm) from 1573 was cast in Freiberg . This bears the initials of Wolfgang Hilliger , one of the most important bell founders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Saxony. The bell had to be given in for war purposes during the Second World War in 1944 and should be melted down. It didn't come to that, however. In 1950 she returned to Würdenhain unharmed.

An originally existing third bell (ø 65 cm) from 1885 was melted down for war purposes during the First World War in 1917. In addition, there were probably two other bells weighing 1.5 and 0.5 quintals already mentioned in 1575, which burst in the sacristy in 1762 and were finally sold to Domsdorf in 1820 .

Cemetery and tombs

War memorial

The church is surrounded by the old Würdenhain cemetery, which has not been used since 1874. Since then it has been located in the west of the village near the exit towards Prieschka. In earlier times the deceased from the neighboring villages belonging to the parish were also buried here. Only damaged remains of the former cemetery wall and the historical grave sites in the outer area are preserved today.

There are also some graves in the church itself; known to be that of the widow Anna Maria von Weißbach († 1696), the electoral forest and game master Friedrich Siebert († 1691) and the Prieschka landlord Andreas Gottfried von Kirchbach († 1724). The pastor Karl Gottlob Haucke († 1776) and his second wife Johanne Eleonore († 1768) are buried under the aisle. For the two of them there is a shared wooden epitaph on the church wall. Another grave was under the prayer room on the north side of the church, which was demolished in 1935. The wife of the Prieschka landlord Friederike Eleonore Luise Vitzthum von Eckstädt was buried here in a grave vault in 1770.

In 1935, the Saathain pastor Wolfgang Bastian also described the 18th century tomb of the Würdenhain pastor M. Johann Pöschel, which was carved in stone and decorated with putti, and was located on the sloping southern side of the church choir. At that time already clearly marked by the effects of the weather, it is no longer preserved in the present.

In the western area of ​​the former cemetery there is a war memorial in the form of a stele in honor of the villagers who died in the two world wars.

and display information about the image
Broken historical tombstones on the old cemetery wall.

Parish Würdenhain

Parish Würdenhain
The half-timbered church in Oschätze, which was demolished in 1908

In addition to Würdenhain itself, the historical Parochie Würdenhain originally included Haida , Prieschka , Reichenhain , Oschätze , Kröbeln and Kosilenzien . Since the Reformation it has been part of the superintendent in Hayn ( Grossenhain ) established in 1548 . As a result of the Wars of Liberation , the northern part of this superintendent fell to Prussia in 1815 , so that a new one was formed in Elsterwerda , to which Würdenhain has since then been part.

During the Reformation in 1541 the parish adopted the evangelical faith. The Catholic priest Thomas Bantzer, who was born on the Prieschkaer Mühlengut , refused to accept the Lutheran faith, built a house on the Würdenhain parish and resigned his office. On Ascension of the same year the first Lutheran pastor was ordained in Würdenhain . The newly introduced pastor Koehler founded a dynasty , because he was followed by his son, his grandson and finally his great-grandson as pastor of Würdenhain.

In 1686 a branch church was built in Oschätze . The half-timbered building, which looked like the original mother church in Würdenhain and was also consecrated to Saint Catherine, was demolished in 1908 and replaced by a new building in the same year. Kröbeln and Kosilenzien, where churches are also located, were spun off as an independent parish after the Reformation.

August Schumann wrote in the 13th volume of his Complete State, Post and Newspaper Lexicon of Saxony , published in 1826 , that the entire parish of Würdenhain comprised about 700 souls at that time.

At the end of the 1990s, the Würdenhain parish was merged with Prösen .

Varia

The old Würdenhain church book with the registered baptisms, weddings and burials from 1655 to 1812 was located in Saathain Castle towards the end of the Second World War , which was burned in April 1945. Together with the church book of Stolzenhain , the extensive castle archive and other art treasures stored there, it was lost when the castle was destroyed.

literature

  • Wolfgang Bastian : The church in Würdenhain . In: The Black Magpie . No. 486 , July 1935 (local history supplement to the Liebenwerdaer Kreisblatt).
  • Hans Appel: The prayer room at the church in Würdenhain . In: The Black Magpie . No. 524 , 1936 (local history supplement to the Liebenwerdaer Kreisblatt).
  • Rudolf Matthies : History of the village Würdenhain . 1953 (compiled within the framework of the national construction work (NAW) ).
  • Markus Agthe, Peter Knüvener: An oak plank with late medieval painting from the church of Würdenhain ... In: Village churches in Niederlausitz: history, architecture, preservation of monuments . Lukas Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-86732-054-2 .

Web links

Commons : St. Katharina Church (Würdenhain)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Footnotes and individual references

  1. ↑ List of monuments of the state of Brandenburg: Elbe-Elster district (PDF) Brandenburg State Office for Monument Preservation and State Archaeological Museum
  2. ↑ Status: 2013
  3. ↑ Rudolf Matthies: "Around the Oppach." In: Home calendar for the Bad Liebenwerda district . Ed .: Working groups of nature and homeland friends of the German Cultural Association in the Bad Liebenwerda district. Print shop activist Bad Liebenwerda, Bad Liebenwerda 1958, p. 121 to 125 .
  4. ^ Emilia Crome: The place names of the Bad Liebenwerda district , Akademie-Verlag Berlin, 1968
  5. ↑ a b Markus Agthe, Peter Knüvener: An oak plank with late medieval painting from the church of Würdenhain ... In: Village churches in Niederlausitz: history, architecture, preservation of monuments . Lukas Verlag, 2011, ISBN 978-3-86732-054-2 , pp. 256 to 276 . ( Digitized version )
  6. ↑ a b c d e Georg Dehio , Gerhard Vinken: Handbook of German Art Monuments, Brandenburg . Deutscher Kunstverlag , 2000, ISBN 3-422-03054-9 , p. 1137-1138 .
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Rudolf Matthies: "History of the village of Würdenhain" . 1953 (set up within the framework of the national construction work).
  8. ↑ Author collective of the MUG Brandenburg e. V .: Heimatbuch Landkreis Elbe-Elster . Herzberg 1996, p. 97 .
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g h Heinrich Nebelsieck : Descriptive representation of the older architectural and art monuments of the province of Saxony, district of Liebenwerda . 1910.
  10. ↑ LHASA , Magdeburg , Rep. D Mühlberg, AV No. 1c
  11. ↑ a b c d e f g h Wolfgang Bastian : "The Church of Würdenhain" in "Die Schwarze Elster", No. 486, July 1935
  12. ↑ a b Hans Appel: “The prayer room at the church in Würdenhain” in “Die Schwarze Elster”, No. 524, 1936
  13. ↑ Cultural Office of the Elbe-Elster district, Bad Liebenwerda district museum, Sparkasse Elbe-Elster (ed.): Orgellandschaft Elbe-Elster . Herzberg / Elster 2005, p. 63 .
  14. ↑ As of March 2016
  15. ↑ "The organ will sound again from September - a donation of 10,000 euros enables the last step of the renovation in Würdenhain" in Lausitzer Rundschau, March 9, 2016
  16. ^ Georg Piltz: German Democratic Republic: Art and travel guide . Kohlhammer Verlag, 1979, p. 180 .
  17. ^ Sächsischer Altertumsverein Dresden (ed.): New archive for Saxon history and antiquity ... Volume 6 . W. Baensch Verlag, 1885, p. 208 .
  18. ↑ Agnes Bircke von der Duba ( memento from April 29, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on the homepage of the association Frauenpolitischer Rat Land Brandenburg e. V. , accessed on April 21, 2014
  19. ↑ Online project Memorials to Fallen
  20. ↑ Evangelische Kirchengemeinde Prösen (Hrsg.): "Church and home history from Prösen and the surrounding area" . 2008, p. 10 .
  21. ↑ Miriam Balzer: The center of Oschätze celebrates its 100th birthday. In: Lausitzer Rundschau. November 2, 2009.
  22. ↑ August Schumann: Complete State, Post and Newspaper Lexicon of Saxony . Verlag der Gebrüder Schumann, Zwickau 1827, p. 329 . ( Digitized version )
  23. ↑ Internet presence of the Bad Liebenwerda church district , accessed on April 18, 2014.
  24. ↑ Felix Hoffmann: "The stone chronicle of Saathain." In: "Home calendar for the Bad Liebenwerda district" . Ed .: Working groups of nature and homeland friends of the German Cultural Association in the Bad Liebenwerda district. Print shop activist Bad Liebenwerda, Bad Liebenwerda 1960, p. 198 to 201 .

Coordinates: 51 ° 28 ′ 31.7 ″  N , 13 ° 27 ′ 35.6 ″  E