St. Antonius Einsiedler (Obererthal)
The Roman Catholic branch church St. Antonius Einsiedler is the village church of Obererthal , a district of Hammelburg in the Bad Kissingen district . The patron saint of the church is Anthony the Hermit .
history
Obererthal is mentioned for the first time in 1294 in a deed of the Thulba monastery and thus recognized as belonging to the Fulda monastery . Before the current church building, there was probably a simple chapel in the same place in the 13th century. In 1481 a church was built whose tower walls still exist today. The longhouse, which was probably built at the same time in a west-east orientation, had a floor space of only 96 square meters and was provided with solid enclosing walls with external timber for fastening a board cladding. The roof was covered with interlocking tiles and straw feathers and the nave had a wooden ceiling. A massive gable wall and an outer, stone staircase to the gallery, plus the sacristy attached to the south of the nave completed the appearance. The coat of arms of the builder, the Fulda prince abbot Johann II von Henneberg-Schleusingen (1472–1513), is embedded in the eastern outer wall of the tower. The Gothic ribbed vault in the basement tower was originally the choir and high altar room. The four rib consoles are designed as the coat of arms of the prince abbot, a tartsche with crossed hammers, a lion and a mask. The keystone bears a head of Christ. On the outside, the tower facade is interrupted by two circumferential cornices and a grooved cornice closes off the roof. The sound holes for the bells and the window and door frames are carved in the Gothic style from the local red sandstone. The slate-covered pointed helmet of the tower was destroyed in a fire on April 20, 1919 and provided with an emergency roof which was only replaced by a pointed helmet sixty years later. Obererthal and the surrounding villages were severely damaged in the warlike years after the Reformation (Luther's theses 1517) and the devastation of the Peasants 'War (1525 destruction of the Thulba nunnery) and the Thirty Years' War, and the church was also badly affected. The Counter-Reformation with Prince-Bishop Julius Echter von Mespelbrunn (1573-1617) of Würzburg and Prince Abbot Balthasar von Dernbach (1570-1606) of Fulda was supposed to bring order and peace back to the area. After the Third Council of Trent (1562–1563), visitations were carried out by the bishops in the parishes. A first is attested in Obererthal in 1656. Obererthal is referred to as a branch of "Closter Thulba" and St. Urban is established as the church patron. There are three altars and the choir has been destroyed. The second visit of 1674 confirms the decline of the church “Patron is St. Antonius. The church devastated .., the walls collapsed, the altar destroyed ”. A new altar should be built with the existing stones and a new floor should be laid. Presumably the little church was rebuilt afterwards. The pastor of Thulba provided the spiritual service. For the Sunday service the villagers had to visit the church of Thulba and only on the holidays of the patron saints: Antonius , Valentinus , Bartolomäus and the Archangel Michael , as well as on the solemn festivals the pastor celebrated St. Mass in the branch church. Around 1730 the cemetery surrounding the church was moved to the exit to Thulba. In 1763, after the founding of the Diocese of Fulda (1752), a thorough visitation took place.
Spiritual care
From the beginning, Obererthal belonged to the Thulba monastery as a branch and after its abolition the Thulba parish was handed over to the local pastor or a chaplain for supervision. In the nineteenth century this task was entrusted to the Franciscan monastery Altstadt Hammelburg . A priest had a temporary residence in the village. The respective pastor of Untererthal took over the services for a long time, most recently from 1965 to 1990 Pastor Fridolin Rudloff (1912–1990). After his death Obererthal, the branch of the parish Thulba was by Hammelburg from pasteurized and . Politically, Obererthal has also been a part of Hammelburg since January 1, 1972 .
Today's church
In the middle of the 19th century the church had to be rebuilt. The ship was dilapidated and no longer offered enough space. Construction began on June 7, 1864 with the laying of the foundation stone, and on August 24, 1885, the church was solemnly consecrated by the dean J. Dominikus Straus on the orders of the Bishop of Würzburg Franz Joseph von Stein (1878–1897). Considerable financial difficulties, plus the German War of 1866 with the Battle of Kissingen and the Franco-German War (1870–1871) delayed construction work. The replacement of the tithing obligation to the "Nonnenconvent zu Fulda" yielded a sum of 300 guilders, whereby the entire construction cost, excluding the interior fittings, was covered with 10,000 guilders through capital and proceeds from the community forest. A hall building in neo-Gothic style, with a retracted polygonal choir, connected to the west of the existing tower in a north-south direction, was erected. The former choir arch to the basement of the tower was walled up and the sacristy was housed in it.
Furnishing
The new high altar cost 800 guilders “with the indication of the old, completely unusable”. The Antonius painting was estimated at 150 guilders, plus the statues of the local patron Valentin and the apostle Bartolomäus, as well as the side altars, which were dedicated to the Immaculate Conception of Mary and the Archangel Michael. In addition, a stone statue of Michael was commissioned from the Kissingen sculptor Arnold and attached to the outside of the gable. A new organ came to stand on the gallery, the bellows of which was still used with a foot pedal until around 1950. With the rest of the craftsmen's costs, this is likely to have driven the parish and neighboring parishes into a heavy burden of debt, especially since a new school was built in 1875. This included pictures of the stations of the cross, a name plaque with a sandstone frame as a war memorial for the participants in the war of 1870/71 (or 1895) and an almost life-size statue of the Virgin Mary. The pulpit was attached to the left wall of the church and all the woodwork was painted in a reed-gray-green color and partially gilded. This condition persisted until the middle of the 20th century.
Newer conversions
At the instigation of the reform-minded pastor of Thulba, Alfred Hummel, a comprehensive interior renovation was carried out from 1957. A new, easy-care floor made of Solnhof marble replaced the old sandstone slabs, the choir screen (communion bench) was used as the substructure of the now free-standing altar and set up with a new ambo in the choir room. The existing side altars were removed and a pieta from the late Gothic period, which stood unprotected in the cemetery chapel, was renovated and mounted on the wall of the right side altar. For the left side, the sculptor J. Ruppert from Hammelburg created a St. Michael as a dragon slayer. The high altar from the 19th century was spared the modernization thanks to violent objections from the parishioners.
The next major project in 1975 brought back the new tower helmet in the Franconian style on September 1, 1980. Architect Hanns Ruser from Hammelburg created an octagonal, 24-meter-high point on the square base. The so-called imperial style is crowned with a gold-plated globe and a 1.5 meter high cross. The addition of a new sacristy made it possible to reopen the tower basement. The pulpit has been removed. The walled-up Gothic choir arch was preserved intact and a prayer room could now be set up there. A new baptismal font, donated by a group of women, was set up there.
During the most recent total renovation, the church received its side altars again. However, the old ones could no longer be found, but thanks to the initiative of the Hammelburg pastor Josef Treutlein, old altars and figures of the right size and in the same neo-Gothic style could be procured. They now form a unit with the color-matched high altar. The Pieta was given a new place of honor in the side chapel and Michael was placed under the gallery. The total renovation costs were around half a million and were largely raised with donations and own funds from the parish and the city.
The church is registered on the list of architectural monuments in Hammelburg under the number D-6-72-127-169 in the Bavarian list of monuments .
Bells
1st bell: 15th century, ø 60 cm, inscription: ave maria gratia plena dominus tecum benedicta tu in mulieribus , melted in the fire in 1919.
2. Bells: 1921 two new castings by the Anton Klaus company, Heidingsfeld, ø 74 and 92 cm. These two bells were confiscated and melted down during World War II in 1942 . A third bell with the year 1898 was bought and made available to the new church in Frankenbrunn in 1949 .
3. Bells: In 1948, the community had the Grünninger company in Villingen cast three new bells: the fallen bell, the Valentinus bell and the Marien bell. This bell was replaced after thirty years because of serious damage.
4. Bells: On September 28, 1980, Pastor Fridolin Rudloff von Untererthal was able to inaugurate three new bells after a collection campaign. The bell of Mary with 700 kilograms and the one dedicated to the local patron Valentin with 400 kilograms, as well as the one dedicated to the patron Antonius with 300 kilograms give the teteum motif with their sound . The striking notes are g ′, b ′ and c ″. The bells from 1980 thus correspond musically to those from 1948.
literature
- Robert Kümmert : The bells of the Hammelburg district , Würzburg 1955
- Franz Warmuth: 500 years of the Obererthal Church , published by the Katholische Kirchgemeinde Hammelburg-Obererthal, 1981
- Adalbert Köhler: 1200 years of Thulba, history and stories , publisher of the festival committee "1200 years of Thulba", 1996
- Heinz Gauli: Obererthal, a branch church of the Thulba parish and its pastors , publisher: Katholische Kirchgemeinde St. Antonius Obererthal, 1997
- Georg Dehio : Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler: Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler, Bavaria I: Franconia: The administrative districts of Upper Franconia, Middle Franconia and Lower Franconia: BD I , Deutscher Kunstverlag Munich Berlin, 2nd, revised and supplemented edition, 1999, p. 808
Web links
- Parish community "Seven Stars in Hammelburger Land" Website of the Obererthal branch church
Individual evidence
- ↑ Schannat, CLIENTELAE FULDENSIS BENEFICIARAE, Nobilis & Eqestris, Frankfurt 1726, CCLXIII, page 289
- ↑ Real Schematism of the Diocese of Würzburg, Würzburg 1897, page 211
- ↑ according to a report by the Royal Building Inspection Kissingen from November 10, 1856
- ↑ Dominikus Heller: Visit. of 1656, page 166; Josef Leinweber: The Hochstift Fulda before the Reformation , Fulda 1972, page 374, ISBN 3-7900-0012-4
- ↑ Heinz Gauli: Obererthal, a branch church of the Thulba parish and its pastors, St. Antonius Obererthal, 1997, page 31
- ^ Parish community Hammelburg
Coordinates: 50 ° 9 ′ 18.9 ″ N , 9 ° 53 ′ 52.2 ″ E