St. Marien (Bad Frankenhausen)

The lower church of St. Marien in Bad Frankenhausen (2005)

The Protestant Church of St. Marien is in the town of Bad Frankenhausen in the Kyffhäuserkreis in Thuringia .

history

The St. Marienkirche is also called the lower church. It was built in 1215 as a Cistercian convent . In 1536 the monastery was secularized and the church took on the function of a main parish church until it burned down in 1689. It was rebuilt as a lower church between 1691 and 1701, including the substructure of the massive tower on the north side of the choir and the wall of the polygonal choir .

The church inside

In the choir, a buttress supports the central axis of the building on four sides of an octagon in a late Gothic manner . The longitudinal galleries are subdivided like a basket arch and continue in the choir room. The patronage boxes are located there . The community room is divided into three floors and vaulted by a flat wooden barrel. A stucco frame carries the painting Dance of Death and the Resurrection , painted by Jürgen Wegener in 1934.

The organ front , a stucco-covered altarpiece and a pulpit carried by angels on the northern triumphal arch pillar date from the construction period . The font is eye-catching because it is made of white marble .

Art treasures of the upper church

The lower church houses works of art from the upper church, such as the late Gothic wooden crucifix and remarkable grave monuments from the 16th and 17th centuries with figurative representations of the deceased.

organ

In 1703 Johann North (1666–1716) from Rudolstadt built the first organ in the lower church, which had 26 stops on two manuals and a pedal . In 1843 an extension was made by Johann Friedrich Schulze from Paulinzella. His foreman Julius Strobel took over the work on site . The now three-manual instrument had 29 registers. The new organ (III / P / 49) was completed in 1886 by Strobel's sons Adolf and Reinhold. They took over twelve registers from 1703 and six registers from 1843. The baroque prospectus was extended on both sides by two-storey flat fields. Five registers were changed in the 20th century. The company Hermann Eule Orgelbau Bautzen restored the condition from 1886 from 2015 to 2019. The instrument with 49 registers and around 3500 pipes is one of the largest preserved organs of the High Romantic era in Central Germany. The disposition is as follows:

I main work C – f 3 Principal 16 ′ Quintatön 16 ′ Principal 8th' Slack harmonique 8th' Hollow flute 8th' Dumped 8th' Viola da gamba 8th' Fifth 5 1 ⁄ 3  ′ Octave 4 ′ Dumped 4 ′ Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′ Octave 2 ′ Mixture V 2 ′ Cymbel III 2 ′ Trumpet 8th'

II Positive C – f 3 Drone 16 ′ Principal 8th' Bortunal flute 8th' Swiss flute 8th' Gamba 8th' Octave 4 ′ Portal flute 4 ′ Nassatquinte 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′ Octave 2 ′ Cornett IV 4 ′ Mixture IV 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′ oboe 8th'

III Swell C – f 3 Lovely Gedackt 16 ′ Violin principal 8th' Lovely Gedackt 8th' Flute traverso 8th' Harmonica flute 8th' Salicional 8th' Vox celeste 8th' Soft flute 4 ′ Fugara 4 ′ violin 2 ′ Mixtura aethera III 2 ′ Aeoline 16 ′

Pedal C – f 1 Principal bass 32 ′ Principal 16 ′ Sub-bass 16 ′ Violon 16 ′ Principal bass 8th' Dumped 8th' Violon 8th' Octave bass 4 ′ trombone 16 ′ Trumpet 8th'

• Coupling : II / I, III / I, I / P, II / P
• Playing aids : Calcant train, wind vent

Web links

Commons : Lower Church of St. Marien (Bad Frankenhausen)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Photos of the lower church of St. Mary
• Website about the church
• Report on the renovation of the church

Individual evidence

1. ^ Werner Hermann: Stadtkirchen in Thüringen - Small Thuringian Library , Thuringia Publishing House, 1992, ISBN 3-86087-023-8 , p. 34/35
2. ↑ Friends of the Organ Association of the "Große Strobel-Orgel eV" , accessed on June 7, 2019.
3. ↑ Organ on Organ Databank , accessed on June 7, 2019.

Coordinates: 51 ° 21 '15.9 "  N , 11 ° 5' 52.1"  E