St. John the Baptist (Hammelburg)
The Roman Catholic Church of St. John the Baptist in Hammelburg , a town in the Lower Franconian district of Bad Kissingen , is consecrated to John the Baptist .
The church is one of the Hammelburg monuments and is registered in the Bavarian list of monuments under the number D-6-72-127-40 . The parish of Hammelburg and some neighboring parishes form the parish community of seven stars in the Hammelburger Land in the dean's office in Hammelburg ( Diocese of Würzburg ).
history
Beginnings
The St. John the Baptist Church emerged - probably as part of a new building - in 1389 through a change of patronage from the former St. Martin's Königsgut Church. The work took place under Pastor Theodrich (later Pastor von Hundsfeld ) as the builder and master builder Conrad Smid, who was also the city schoolteacher of Hammelburg and dedicated a grave monument to his deceased wife at the head of the parish church. In 1461 the church was given its intended purpose. Apparently, further construction work took place there in 1530.
There have been several tombstones in the church since the 14th century, such as the tombstone for the wife of the choir builder who died in 1392 with a depiction of the crucifixion of Christ and, also with a depiction of the crucifixion, the tombstone of the wife of a stonemason who died in 1456 . More tombstones were made in the 16th and 17th centuries.
Around 1450, a mural of the Dormition of Mary was created in the choir and a mural of St. Christopher in the nave at the end of the 15th century . A two-storey group of Mounts of Olives outside the church dates from the 15th century, the altar made by carpenter Jacob Reinhard from 1696.
There is no proof in the form of invoices or files as to who made the radiant Madonna above the high altar , but it is attributed to the Flemish sculptor Jakob van der Auwera . This assumption was first expressed by the daughter of the art historian Theodor Henner, who worked in the Hammelburg parish. The Madonna was compared with the house Madonna of the cathedral parish in Würzburg and the Madonna in the parish church of Gereuth .
17th to 19th century
Due to ambiguities in the jurisdiction of the Diocese of Fulda and the Diocese of Würzburg , only a few regular visitations took place. The only "big" visitation report dates from August 30, 1656 and describes the seven altars and the numerous painted pictures of the church, while the visitation report of 1674 calls for various cleaning measures in the church building.
During the 1830s, numerous figures and pictures belonging to the church furnishings were sold. The remaining figures include the rococo figure of St. Anna and a pietà from the 15th century . Both figures were recast by the gilder Michael Klüpfel from Thüngersheim .
In 1837 the first major renovation of the church took place, in which the hand and tension frond had to be provided by the city of Hammelburg; the Schmitt brothers from Euerdorf were commissioned with the whitewashing work for 225 guilders . During this renovation, the frescoes of St. Christopher and the Dormition of Mary in the choir were exposed; at the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century they were considered “no longer appropriate” and had been painted over. The baroque high altar has been renovated and its seven figures have been redesigned. Of these, the figure of Christ Salvator (today at the north entrance of the church) and the two patrons of the place John the Baptist and St. Lawrence (both on the choir arch) are still present.
In the fire of April 25, 1854, 464 houses and the tower of the St. John the Baptist Church were destroyed; Pastor Michael Bäuerlein was rescued from the collapsing schoolhouse by Johannes Reu from Frankenbrunn .
In 1855, a St. John's bell was re-cast after all the bells with the tower had been destroyed.
In 1862 Pastor Georg Michael Rappert worked out a plan to expand the church. However, the city administration refused to assume the costs of 4,000 guilders, as the rebuilding of the burned down church tower had already cost 10,000 guilders.
In 1873 a restoration of the church began, the cost of which was paid in the amount of 7,000 guilders from the Carl-von-Heß'schen social foundation. On June 4, 1883, the association for the renewal of the parish church of Hammelburg was founded; it dissolved again in 1893. As part of the restoration, a pulpit , a Marian altar and a new cross altar (all made by the Barth'schen Kunstanstalt in neo-Gothic style) were installed. In 1879 the cross altar was sold to Windheim (today part of Wartmannsroth ) for the local St. Agidius Church , where the altar made by Johann Peter Wagner was burned down.
As part of the restoration, according to reports in the Hammelburger Journal on October 31, 1889, the previous baroque high altar was laid down and replaced by a high altar made by Valentin Weidner . The altar showed the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist , while the side panels, when closed during Lent , show the Last Supper (left) and the sacrifice of the priest-king Melchizedech (right), and when open, the defense speech of the Apostle Paul on the Areopagus (left) and the handover of the keys to the apostle Peter (right). According to the files known in the diocesan archive, the carpentry work came from the Barth'schen Kunstschreinerei from Würzburg, which was settled with a sum of 5,750 guilders . Weidner only has a handwritten receipt from April 30, 1890 for 130 marks for a "Mother of God statue to be carried in processions", which suggests that the cabinet maker Barth made the altar structure himself while Weidner carved the altar wings and the figures. With the new organ on December 19, 1993, Weidner's high altar, which was moved back from the former local court prison, was inaugurated. The two wings were split in this frame so that all four reliefs are now visible at the same time.
In 1896 - this time under Pastor Georg Göpfert - another attempt was made to expand the church. The Chamber of the Interior, Würzburg, rejected the suggestion, however, on the grounds that enlarging the church would require the removal of the Ölberg chapel and epitaphs.
In 1926 the Klaus brothers from Heidingsfeld added four bells to ring. The new bells were called the Mother of God Bell, St. Joseph Bell and Baptism Bell. In 1942 the four bells had to be delivered. They didn't come back.
Renovation from 1950
During the renovation in 1950, a vault was made, painted over frescoes, vault ribs and columns were exposed. The Auwera Madonna was also renewed. The altar was dismantled and its figures and wings were taken to the former regional court prison. When the altar was dismantled, a letter dated November 1, 1889 was found in Latin, describing the renovation of the church in 1889, financed by the Association for the Renewal of the Parish Church of Hammelburg. As the letter says, the altar was built by Weidner and the choir by Clemens Schraivogel.
The consecration of the bell in 1953
On September 20, the new chime of five bronze bells was consecrated. It was cast by the Karl Czudnochowsky bell foundry in Erding .
| No. | Surname | Chime | Weight | inscription |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | St. John | d´ | 1400 kg | By repentance for peace, so John the Baptist preached on the Jordan beach; through repentance to peace, I call from the tower into the land! |
| 2 | Mother of God | f´ | 900 kg | Bless our homeland, protect the whole country, hold your hand over everyone, mother. |
| 3 | St. Joseph | G | 600 kg | St. Joseph come to help us in our need and stand by us in death. |
| 4th | Boniface | a´ | 400 kg | For Hammelburg the grace 'implore that it will always stand firmly in faith', oh hl. Boniface! |
| 5 | Sturmius | c´´ | 250 kg | St. Sturmius, ora et labora, ut in omnibus glorificetur deus. |
organ
The current organ in the parish church dates from 1993 and was manufactured by the Johannes Klais Orgelbau factory in Bonn . It has 44 registers , divided into 3 manuals and pedal . A special feature of the organ, which was specially designed for the Hammelburg parish church, is, in addition to a mutton's head that can be pulled out with a stop, the “Trautles shelf” register, whose pipe look is based on a grapevine.
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- Coupling : I / II, III / II, III / I, I / P, II / P, III / P
Extension of the church from 1957/1958
In 1956, at the instigation of local pastor Oscar Röll, the first steps towards the expansion of the church were set, for which the Würzburg bishop Julius Döpfner also spoke out during the confirmation that took place in Hammelburg in April 1956. It happened under the direction of the Würzburg cathedral master builder Hans Skull and the construction management of the architect Hanns Ruser. Ruser's plans, submitted on January 9, 1957, were approved on April 25, 1957 after initial structural concerns and uncertainties regarding the financing of the Diocese of Würzburg , the Bavarian State Office for Monument Preservation and the Bavarian State Ministry for Education and Culture. It was financed with the support of the Episcopal Ordinariate, the parish and the armed forces, who used the church as a place for larger celebrations.
During the construction work from August 1957 to September 1958, the central nave was extended to the west by two bays (16 m in total); The portal wall and double gallery were dismantled and their stones were reassembled 16 meters further. Architect Ruser succeeded in walling the ribbed vault in a Gothic style. In this context, the rapid vault of the central nave, which was used in 1950, was replaced by a real vault and the style of the gallery was modeled. In the course of the expansion, the Ölberg chapel had to be relocated to the foundation of the former city wall corner tower. On November 30, 1959, the high altar was consecrated by Bishop Josef Stangl .
After the Hammelburg District Office had demanded that the construction work be stopped because “the building permit had not been obtained from a design point of view”, Dean Oscar Röll was summoned to the Hammelburg District Court on January 9, 1959, “because of building risk ”, but the Schweinfurt public prosecutor's office did so Proceedings on April 20, 1959.
literature
- Hugo Schnell, Paul Mai (ed.): Stadtpfarrkirche Hammelburg , Verlag Schnell & Steiner, 1977
- Franz Warmuth: The parish church of St. Johannes d. T. - A contribution to building history , in: Johannes Merz (Hrsg.): Hammelburg - building blocks for parish history , commemorative publication for the year of anniversaries in 1989, Hammelburg 1988, pp. 21-40
- Oscar Röll: Memories of the church expansion , in: Johannes Merz (ed.): Hammelburg - building blocks for parish history , commemorative publication for the year of anniversaries in 1989, Hammelburg 1988, pp. 41–44
- Werner Eberth : Valentin Weidner. In: “Kissinger Hefte” , Volume 1, Theresienbrunnen-Verlag, Bad Kissingen 1992, pp. 45–48
- Werner Eberth: Valentin and Hans Weidner (1848–1919), (1875–1953). Sculptors of Historicism in Franconia , additions to the "Kissinger Heft" volume 1, supplement to the exhibition: "The Bad Kissinger Sculptor Valentin Weidner" 1992, Theresienbrunnen-Verlag, Bad Kissingen 1996, pp. 24–26 & p. 36
- Josef Treutlein: Hammelburg - St. John the Baptist , Weick-Kunstführer, Kunstverlag Weick, 1996, ISBN 3-930602-17-2
- 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, reviewed and supplemented edition, 1999, p. 424
- Robert Kümmert : The bells of the Hammelburg district , Würzburg 1955
Web links
- The Church of St. John the Baptist on the homepage of the parish community "Seven Stars in Hammelburger Land"
- Twelve ringing of the bells on Bavarian radio
Individual evidence
- ^ Gertrud Krüger: Jakob van der Auwera , Würzburg, 1931
- ^ Rudolf Erwin Kuhn: Baroque Madonnas in Würzburg . Wurzburg 1982
- ^ Oscar Röll: City parish church in Hammelburg . Schnell-Kunstführer No. 1111, Munich 1977
- ↑ Diocesan Archives Fulda - visitation reports 1626 - 1681
- ↑ State Archives Marburg - holdings 92/97
- ↑ Diocesan Archives Würzburg - Parish Archives Hammelburg, from October 26th, 1837
- ^ Hammelburg rectory - parish chronicle
- ↑ Diocesan Archives Würzburg - Parish Archives Würzburg, Box 1, No. 01.21
- ^ Diocesan Archives Würzburg - Parish Archives Würzburg, letter from the magistrate to the parish office of September 15, 1682
- ↑ Diocesan Archives Würzburg - Parish Archives Würzburg, Box 38, Restoration of the parish church 1870 - 1892
- ↑ Diocesan Archives Würzburg - Parish Archives Würzburg, Box 39, No. 81.1 - 86.9
- ↑ Diocesan Archives Würzburg - Parish Archives Windheim , box 38, act of August 9, 1879, restoration of the high altar in the parish church here (Windheim)
- ↑ Diocesan Archives Würzburg: Box 39/81
- ↑ Johannes Merz: Hammelburg - building blocks for the parish history , Hammelburg, p. 24 and 32
- ^ Archives of the Bad Kissingen District Office, expansion of the Catholic parish church in Hammelburg 1898 , No. 336/39
- ↑ City administration Würzburg (ed.): Modern church building in the diocese of Würzburg , undated
Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 49.1 ″ N , 9 ° 53 ′ 25 ″ E