St. Heinrich (Bamberg)

View of the west facade

Side view

St. Heinrich is a Catholic parish church in Bamberg .

history

The parish of St. Heinrich was established at the beginning of the 20th century after the increasing settlement of the eastern part of the city in the 19th century. In 1914 a church building association was founded. After the First World War, the financing was secured.

Construction work began in April 1927. The foundation stone was laid in June 1927. After two and a half years of construction at a cost of 585,000 Reichsmarks, the church was completed. It was consecrated on September 8, 1929 - contrary to original plans (Holy Trinity) to St. Heinrich , the founder of the Bamberg diocese .

The pastoral care was taken over by the Franciscans of the Bavarian Franciscan Province , who built a monastery near the church that existed until 1999. The Franciscan Father Leonhard Donhauser stayed as pastor until 2006, then pastoral care was transferred to the Archdiocese of Bamberg.

building

Choir building; then on the left the rectory

The church was built according to plans by the architect Michael Kurz and is an important building from the transition years from the historically oriented church building to the modern age . The church is one of the first significant exposed concrete churches in Germany.

The external appearance of the church is monumental. The nave is 61 m long, approx. 21 m wide and 13 m high up to the roof cornice. The church has approx. 700 seats.

In the west, the nave is flanked by two towers with a square floor plan, 6.5 m wide and 35 m high. They are each rotated 45 degrees around their own axis and their edges protrude from the west facade.

A round choir with a diameter of approx. 16 m and a domed ceiling of 22 m inside and 26 m outside connects to the east side . The nave and the choir are connected by a large choir arch.

In 1985 the church was added to the list of protected cultural assets .

Interior design

The nave is supported by nine concrete pillars on the left and right and has a tapered wooden ceiling. The inner sides of the pillars are decorated with mosaics of the apostles and messengers of faith.

In the chancel there is a 9.6 m high choir cross, which was created in 1935 by the artist K. Bauer .

To the left of the choir arch, which opens the nave to the choir, there is an altar of Mary. It shows Mary on a tree stump with the baby Jesus in her arms. The side altar to the right of the chancel arch is the sacrament altar that houses the tabernacle . In front of the left side altar, on one of the pillars, is the pulpit, decorated with colored mosaics, depicting the Ten Commandments, the Ark of the Covenant, Christ as the truth and the symbols of the four evangelists and the Holy Spirit. All mosaic pictures were created by Wilhelm Pütz . The large mosaic altarpieces from 1934 were covered with plaster in 1968 and exposed again in 2010.

The nine windows in the choir were designed by Michael Kurz and completed by Franz Müller (Bamberg) in 1935. The windows symbolize the measurement sacrifice theology. Special symbols are those of the sun (Alpha) and the moon (Omega) for Jesus' death on the cross, as a sacrifice for the redemption of people and the whole cosmos; white ribbons symbolize the streams of grace released by Jesus' death on the cross, as well as a shaped eye of God and the fruits of the sacrificial sacrifice .

Between the two entrance portals on the west side there is a semicircular niche with the font. Under the north tower there is the chapel of Our Lady of Sorrows with a sculpture from the 15th century, under the south tower the war memorial chapel with plaques on which the names of the fallen and missing of the Second World War are recorded.

organ

In the west, a gallery leads from the large organ gallery to the left and right of the nave to the choir. On the west gallery a large organ fills almost the entire west wall. The 1951 by the organ building company EF Walcker & Cie. The built-in instrument has 58 stops on three manuals and a pedal.

I main work C – a ³
1.	Principal	16 ′
2.	Wide principal	8th'
3.	Gemshorn	8th'
4th	Covered	8th'
5.	Dolce	8th'
6th	octave	4 ′
7th	Reed flute	4 ′
8th.	Fifth	2 ² ⁄ ₃  ′
9.	Super octave	2 ′
10.	Intoxicating fifth III
11.	Mixture IV-VI
12.	Trumpet	16 ′
13.	Trumpet	8th'
14th	Clairon	4 ′

II breastwork C – a ³
15th	Roughly covered	8th'
16.	Quintatön	8th'
17th	Flute principal	8th'
18th	Italian principal	4 ′
19th	Bass flute	4 ′
20th	Schwiegel	2 ′
21st	Sesquialter II	2 ² ⁄ ₃  ′
22nd	Fifth flute	1 ¹ ⁄ ₃  ′
23.	Zimbel IV
24.	Dulcian	16 ′
25th	Krummhorn	8th'
26th	shelf	4 ′

III Swell C – a ³
27.	Night horn	16 ′
28.	Prefix	8th'
29	Reed flute	8th'
30th	Willow pipe	8th'
31.	Violin beat	8th'
32.	Principal	4 ′
33.	Coupling flute	4 ′
34.	Nasard	2 ² ⁄ ₃  ′
35.	Field flute	2 ′
36.	Night horn	1 ³ ⁄ ₅  ′
37.	Gemshorn fifth	1 ¹ ⁄ ₃  ′
38.	Night horn	1'
39.	Mixture IV-V
40.	Basson	16 ′
41.	Light trumpet	8th'
42.	Rohrschalmei	4 ′

Pedal C – f ¹
43.	Pedestal	32 ′
44.	Principal bass	16 ′
45.	Sub bass	16 ′
46.	Soft bass	16 ′
47.	Octave bass	8th'
48.	Bass flute	8th'
49.	Choral bass	4 ′
50.	Pommer	4 ′
51.	Peasant flute	2 ′
52.	Mixture V
53.	trombone	16 ′
54.	Basson	16 ′
55.	Bass trumpet	8th'
56.	Light trumpet	8th'
57.	Clarine	4 ′
58.	Singing Cornett	2 ′

Coupling: II / I, III / I, III / II, I / P, II / P, III / P; Sub- and super-octave coupling
Playing aids: 6 free combinations, 2 free pedal combinations, 3 fixed combinations, pleno, tutti, crescendo roller, storage (roller, single tongues)

Peal

In the south tower there were initially two bells , the larger of which was confiscated during World War II. In 1947 it was temporarily replaced by an iron bell. Today's bell was cast by the Bochum club in 1956. It consists of eight cast steel bells and is one of the largest cast steel bells. The nominal values of the bells are:

No.	Casting year	Caster	Diameter (cm)	Percussive ( HT -¹ /₁₆ )
1	1956	Bochum Association	209	g sharp ⁰
2	1956	Bochum Association		cis ¹
3	1956	Bochum Association		dis ¹
4th	1956	Bochum Association		e ¹
5	1956	Bochum Association		f sharp ¹
6th	1956	Bochum Association		g sharp ¹
7th	1956	Bochum Association		as ¹
8th	1956	Bochum Association	84	c sharp ²