St. Margaretha (Grombach)
The Catholic Church of St. Margaretha in Grombach , a district of the large district town of Bad Rappenau in the district of Heilbronn in northern Baden-Württemberg , goes back to the town's church, which was already occupied in the Middle Ages and was in its current form in 1759 by the Grombacher mayor and master builder Johann Peter Moll , who also donated the splendid baroque furnishings that have been preserved to this day.
history
The Catholic Church goes back to the original church of the village, documented since the early 13th century and consecrated to St. Margaretha, which had initially become Protestant at the time of the Reformation under Christoph von Venningen , through the change to Catholic local rule under Johann von Werth during the Thirty Years' War and the subsequent increased settlement of Catholics but then later served as a Catholic Church. When the then Lutheran lords of Venningen regained local rule in 1700 , there was a need for a church for both denominations. From 1715 the old church was a simultaneous church .
The old church was renovated in 1759 by the Grombacher mayor and master builder Johann Peter Moll and used as a simultaneous church until the Protestant church was built in 1787. The construction costs for the choir and tower had to be borne by the Wimpfen monastery , to which Grombach originally belonged to the church. Since 1787 the church has only served the local Catholics, who formed their own parish until 1991, before the parishes in Grombach and Obergimpern were united.
Renovations to the church took place in 1902, 1934, 1936, 1960, 1981 and 2009/10.
Around the church was the original burial place of the place, whereby people of the local nobility and other important personalities were also buried inside the church. Numerous epitaphs from the old church are documented, which were probably taken over into the new church at the beginning, but most of which had expired by 1800. Today only the epitaph of Pastor Cornelius Junck († 1762) is preserved. Bones found in 1981 during renovation work are believed to be those of the master builder Moll, who was probably buried inside the church as the founder in 1767. Since the Grombach cemetery was laid out in 1785, no one has been buried near or in St. Margaretha.
Close to the church is the historic Catholic rectory , which was renovated in 1754 just a few years before the church. In 1783 a stone crucifixion group was erected directly in front of the church. Other high crosses and various statues of the Virgin Mary, some of which date back to the second half of the 18th century, testify to popular piety in Grombach. Church life has shaped the place until the very recent past. Until well after the Second World War, z. B. Corpus Christi processions take place through the streets of Grombach, which are festively decorated with flowers and flags for this purpose, for which a street altar was erected at the Hochkreuz in central village.
Among the Catholic pastors and parish administrators of modern times who worked in Grombach, some personalities stand out. From 1776 to 1779 Christoph Beythorn was parish administrator. His nephew Ferdinand Bajer (1780–1852), born in Grombach, was the author of the Baden Forest Act. Beythorn's successor Johann Jakob Hemmer (1752–1807) was also dean of the Waibstadt regional chapter from 1796 . Albert Bucher (1880–1961), who worked in Grombach from 1920 to 1930, was imprisoned in Mannheim from 1940 to 1945 as persecuted by the Nazi regime. His successor Johannes Gothe (1898–1979), in office from 1930 to 1934, later became an honorary citizen of Philippsburg . Pastor Walter Kosian (1911–2004) looked after the community from 1950 to 1983 and initiated extensive renovations to the church.
The great piety that once prevailed there has also led to many native Grombachers embarking on a spiritual career. Among these were Michael Dick (1844–1922), who was pastor in Schlierstadt and Impfingen, Eugen Heintzmann (1914–1991), who was pastor in Iffezheim, Friedrich Hemmer (1903–1993), who was pastor in Külsheim and there also for An honorary citizen was made, and Albert Laub (1846–1901), who was pastor in Wertheim. Numerous other Grombacher became religious, among them the missionaries August Wendelin Breunig (1905–1979), Pirmin Fleck (1897–1957) and his sister Pirmina Fleck (1894–1966) as well as the nun Hugolina Utzmann (1903–1970), the superior Seligenstadt Monastery was.
architecture
The church is located at the eastern end of the old town center on the main street of Grombach. It is roughly geosted . Inside, it has a length of 28.80 meters and a width of 11.80 meters with a ceiling height of 9 meters. The choir adjoins the single-nave nave , which is spanned by a barrel vault , while the church tower, which in essence still goes back to the previous building, is attached to the choir to the south and the sacristy that was built in 1968 . The church has high arched windows and is covered by a gable roof that merges into a mansard roof above the choir . The western side of the gable is designed as a volute gable with oculi .
The main entrance to the church is the north portal on the long side of the nave. It is crowned with figures of St. Margarethe and St. Sebastian and two cartouches surrounded by rocaille jewelry, in which there are two prayer texts addressed to the saints, which form a chronogram from which the year 1759 can be derived as the year of construction. A group of figures above the south portal symbolizes faith, love and hope, flanked by figures of the Archangel Michael and St. George .
Furnishing
The baroque interior of the mighty main altar , two side altars, the pulpit and two confessionals dates back to the time of construction. The richly decorated baroque main altar is exceptional among the village churches in the area and is due to the fact that mayor Moll was not only a master builder , but also a wealthy donor who bought the church 2500 guilders during his lifetime and a further 800 guilders for completion who bequeathed altars.
Altars
The altars were bricked up by Georg Günther from Neuhausen and gilded by Adam Günther from Bruchsal in 1811/12 . The main altar is a niche construction consisting essentially of six columns. In the middle niche there is a figure of the crucified, in the side niches there are figures of the church patroness Margaretha and St. Magdalena . The altar is crowned by a representation of the Trinity and numerous putti . All parts of the altar are richly decorated with scrollwork. A small female figure above St. Margareta is supposed to represent Anna Catharina Laub, the widow of the founder Moll. The side altars are also richly decorated with columns, scrollwork and scrollwork, but contain paintings instead of figures in the central field and in the crown. The left side altar shows Mary as Queen of Heaven and above St. Magdalena, the right side altar shows the martyrdom of St. Sebastian and above that St. Margareta. Sebastian, who also appears above the north portal of the church, has been venerated as the plague patron in Grombach since 1668. An old baptismal font is also used today as a celebration altar.
Figures and pictures
Some old figures of saints are kept inside the church. The figures of St. Rochus (with pilgrim's staff and plague bumps ) and St. Wendelin (with cattle) were procured in 1811 to replace older figures of both saints. Other figures show the Pietà and St. Joseph with the boy Jesus .
On the walls of the nave there is a sequence of 14 stations of the cross .
organ
An organ on the gallery in the west of the church is already occupied for the church before 1800, probably the organ from 1730, which was already used in the previous building and built by an organ builder from Pforzheim. In 1897 a new organ was installed in the church by Franz Anton Kiene from Waldkirch . Their tin pipes had to be delivered in the First World War . The organ was then renovated several times. In 1985 Vleugels built a new organ using the old organ case.
Bells
Little is known about the church's early bells. Presumably, shortly after the current church was built in 1759, a bell was financed by the Johann Moll Foundation. The community of Grombach provided funds for the procurement of a bell in 1775 and 1812. In 1817 Lucas Speck cast two new bronze bells for the Margarethenkirche in Heidelberg, with the old bells probably being used as a cast. The smaller of the bacon bells had the striking tone c '', a diameter of 67 cm and a weight of 200 kg. Its inscription read LUCAS BACON IN HEIDELBERG GOSS MICH VOR DIE CATHOLISCHE GEMEIND IN GROMBACH ANNO 1817. The larger bacon bell weighed 287 kg and had a similar inscription.
In 1905 the bells were extended to three-part with a bronze bell cast by Benjamin Grüninger Sons in Villingen. It had the strike tone g ', a diameter of 99 cm and a weight of 567 kg. The bell had a longer foundry and donor inscription and was decorated with a Maria Immaculata , but had to be delivered for armament purposes as early as 1917 during the First World War .
The larger of the two old bacon bells from 1817 had cracked and was replaced in 1922 by a bell from the Bachert bell foundry in Kochendorf. This bell, possibly already in use elsewhere, had the strike tone f ', a diameter of 114 cm and a weight of 715 kg. In 1939 the peal was extended to four-part with two new bronze bells cast in Gescher by Petit & Edelbrock. The larger of the bells from 1939 had the strike tone as 'and a weight of 600 kg, the smaller one had the strike tone b' and a weight of 300 kg. During the Second World War , the three newest bells had to be delivered in 1942 for armament purposes, so that only the smaller bacon bell from 1817 remained in the church for the time being.
In 1949 the current three-part bell was procured, which was poured into mind by Gebr. Rincker. The large Joseph's bell has the strike sound as', a diameter of 97.5 cm and a weight of 540 kg. Their inscription reads GO ALL TO JOSEF . The middle Marienglocke has the strike note b ', a diameter of 88.5 cm and a weight of 396 kg. Her inscription reads MARIA NEVER FORGETS THAT GREETS HER WITH RELIGIOUS AVE . The small Margaret bell has the percussive c '', kg a diameter of 78.5 cm and a weight of 290th Their inscription reads ST. MARGARITA IN FIGHT AND ARBIT HELP YOUR CHURCH AT ALL TIME . After the new bells had been installed, the old bacon bell from 1817 was sold to Eichtersheim , where it was initially located in the old Catholic church before it was moved to its current location in the Angelbachtal- Michelfeld cemetery .
literature
- Gudrun Graipel: The Catholic parish church of St. Margaretha , in: City of Bad Rappenau (Ed.): Grunbach uff dem Creichgöw. A home book. Contributions to the past and present of Grombach, the westernmost district of Bad Rappenau. Bad Rappenau 2010, pp. 304–323.
- Norbert Jung: Immaculata - A contribution to the history of bells in Bad Rappenau , in connection with the Bad Rappenau town archive, ed. by Norbert Jung, Heilbronn 2010, pp. 38–45.
Web links
Coordinates: 49 ° 13 ′ 39.9 ″ N , 8 ° 59 ′ 56.7 ″ E