St. James the Elder (Enchenreuth)
St. Jakobus the Elder is the Catholic church in the Enchenreuth district in the town of Helmbrechts in the Hof district . It belongs to the dean's office of the Archdiocese of Bamberg in the Bavarian Vogtland .
history
The Enchenreuth settlement was founded in the 12th century, and in 1353 it was made a market. The church built there was a branch of the village Presseck . While Presseck, Grafengehaig and Helmbrechts became Lutheran at the time of the Reformation , Enchenreuth remained Catholic. In 1553 Enchenreuth separated from its previous parish church in Presseck and became an independent parish. The first own pastor of Enchenreuth was Johann Thüssel, who exercised his office from 1553 to 1581. Prince-Bishop Weigand von Bamberg appointed his own Vogt with an archbishop's neck court in Enchenreuth. In 1635, during the Thirty Years' War , the church burned down. Due to great poverty, a new church was not built until 1648.
Pastor Johann Eschbaumer had the church and parsonage rebuilt in 1784 . All that is known about this church building, which on the night of May 30, 1883, was destroyed by flames along with a large part of the town of Enchenreuth, is that it should have been built in the Baroque style and that it had a 38 meter high onion dome with five bells . The present church was built in neo-Gothic style and was consecrated on September 27, 1885. In 2018, about 700 Catholics belonged to the Enchenreuth parish.
inventory
Altars and Figures
The church patron St. James is shown above in the high altar . Below left and right are Saints Barbara and Catherine. Two pictures at the foot of the high altar show the ancestor Abraham and the high priest and king of Salem, Melchizedech. The two side altars are dedicated to the Mother of God and St. Wendelin.
Procession poles
The guild rods , the rod Saints called, are a gem and a rarity. They show St. Mark, the patron saint of bricklayers, St. Crispin as patron saint of tanners and saddlers, St. Joseph as patron saint of carpenters and joiners, St. Nicholas of Myra as patron saint of weavers and drapers, bakers and boatmen, saint Wendelin, patron saint of farmers and protector of animals as well as Saint Rochus from Montpellier in France as saint against contagious diseases. The seventh staff, which was made later, shows the patron saint of the church, St. James the Elder, who is venerated as the patron saint of crops.
organ
The organ was built with the new church around 1885 by GF Steinmeyer & Co. from Öttingen. Company Hey Organ Builders renewed the organ in 1975 and company Orgelbau Hörl they renovated in 2008. The neo-Gothic organ case Steinmeyer remained. The instrument has 13 registers , which are divided into two manuals and pedal . The disposition is as follows:
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P
Bells
In the tower, which is 36 meters high, there are four bells. The largest of them is dedicated to the patron saint of the church, St. James , followed by St. Catherine, St. John and St. Barbara as bell patrons. The pitches of the four bells are F sharp, A, B, and C sharp.
Priest of the parish of Enchenreuth
55 pastors worked in Enchenreuth since 1553. Five sons of the parish were ordained priests:
- Pastor Götz von Löwenrath 1690, his Primizkelch is still preserved in the parish,
- Pastor Andreas Gareis 1870,
- Pastor Johann Schmitt 1875,
- Monsignor Rüdiger Feulner 1995, Pontifical Legation Councilor in the Apostolic Nunciature to the European Union in Brussels and
- Pastor Günter Seel 1996.
Due to the shortage of priests, the parish of Enchenreuth was placed under the administration of the pastor in Helmbrechts in 1994. In 2006, the Sankt Heinrich Parish Association was founded with Enchenreuth, Helmbrechts, Münchberg and Sparneck . After the death of the senior pastor Alexander Brehm 2018, the Fathers took the Basilica Marienweiher the pastoral care.
Traditions
On Corpus Christi Day and the following Sunday, the Holy of Holies and the Holy Family are carried through the village and through the corridor in two solemn processions . The planned gospels will be recited in four chapels .
In September there is a one-day pilgrimage to the Marienweiher Basilica . This pilgrimage dates back to 1603 and a vow after the outbreak of the plague . It is one of the oldest pilgrimages in the Archdiocese of Bamberg.
Web link
- Website of the dean's office in Hof with Enchenreuth
Coordinates: 50 ° 14 ′ 23 " N , 11 ° 37 ′ 16.4" E