St. Nicolai (Polditz)

St. Nicolai Church in Polditz

The Church of St. Nicolai zu Polditz is a Protestant- Lutheran church in Leisnig , Altleisnig district , and has a significant impact on the landscape. The lofty sacred building houses Saxony's largest loading organ.

history

The original church of the place stood in Altleisnig, the first settlement of the place Leisnig on the other side of the Mulde and was mentioned for the first time in the year 1214 as chapel St. Nicolai . It burned down on March 25, 1860. The church council decided to build a new church elsewhere outside the flood area of the Mulde. Due to the expected increase in population at the time, the large Nicolaikirche was built in 1865 with around 1,000 seats.

The foundation stone was laid on May 28, 1863, and the church was consecrated with the first service on November 5, 1865. It forms a rectangle in the ground plan, to the east with the projecting choir , to the west with the tower that can be seen from afar.

In the GDR era, the necessary maintenance measures could only be implemented inadequately. In 1980 the dilapidated pointed hood of the 64 meter high tower was removed and closed with a simple tower hood. Due to the increasingly hopeless situation for the parish, the church council decided to give up the church building. The roof was to be removed and the walls secured with the aim of leaving the church in ruins , because the complete demolition was too costly. A new home was sought for the damaged Ladegast organ.

Some members of the congregation did not want to come to terms with this: On their own initiative , they began to secure the building fabric and renewed the entire 1,200 square meter church roof from April to October 1987 in voluntary weekend work. The necessary finances of 60,000 GDR marks were mainly raised from donations from the community members. The renovation of the outer facade also continued step by step, at the end of 1991 more than half of the nave was newly plastered.

On October 3, 1992 the fully restored interior of the nave was inaugurated. A year later - now under better economic conditions with the support of construction companies, ABM workers and funding from the monument protection and further with a lot of voluntary commitment - the interior and exterior renovation of the church tower was completed. Repairs to the entrances, the bells, the tower clock and the outdoor facilities followed.

organ

The organ built by Friedrich Ladegast was consecrated in the church in 1868 - today it is the largest Ladegast organ in Saxony. In 1980 the implementation of the damaged instrument was considered, but this could be done with the renovation of the church by parishioners and the Polditzer Orgelverein e. V. be averted. From October 1996 to Pentecost 1997 the organ was restored to its original state by the organ workshop Christian Scheffler , Sieversdorf, the re-inauguration was on Whit Monday 1997. The Polditzer Orgelverein e. V. celebrated the consecration of the organ 150 years ago and the 200th birthday of Friedrich Ladegast in 2018.

The organ has 33 registers , three manuals and a pedal . She has the following disposition:

I. Manual Oberwerk C - f ³
01.	Lovely Gedackt	16 ′
02.	Violin principal	08th'
03.	Double flute	08th'
04th	Salicional	08th'
05.	Principal	04 ′
06th	Flauto amabile	04 ′
07th	violin	02 ′
08th.	Progr. Harm II-III
09.	oboe	08th'

II. Manual Hauptwerk C – f ³
10.	Principal	16 ′
11.	Drone	16 ′
12.	flute	08th'
13.	Principal	08th'
14th	Viol	08th'
15th	Reed flute	08th'
16.	octave	04 ′
17th	Dumped	04 ′
18th	Fifth	02 ² ⁄ ₃  ′
19th	Octave	02 ′
20th	Cornett III
21st	Mixture III

III. Manual swell C – f ³
22nd	Transverse flute	08th'
23.	Lovingly dumped	08th'
24.	Viola d`amour	08th'
25th	Soft flute	04 ′

Pedal C – d ¹
26th	Violon	32 ′
27.	Principal bass	16 ′
28.	Sub bass	16 ′
29	Bass flute	08th'
30th	Octavbass	08th'
31.	Quintbass	05 ¹ ⁄ ₃  ′
32.	Octavbass	04 ′
33.	trombone	16 ′

Coupling : II / I, III / I, I / P
Secondary registers and / or playing aids : Calcantenruf, Vacant

Bells

The ringing consists of three cast steel bells from 1922 with the striking tones d '(1,480 mm lower diameter, 1,350 kg), f' (1,330 mm lower diameter, 1,000 kg) and as' (1,090 mm lower diameter, 600 kg), cast from the Bochum association .

Concerts

On December 29, 2018 there was the premiere of the Polditz wind Christmas with the "Sunbeam in the Dark", performed by the brass ensemble Ludwig Güttler .
On November 29, 2018, Samuel Kummer , cantor of the Frauenkirche in Dresden, played the 95th concert, as well as the anniversary concert for the 150th anniversary of the organ consecration.
On May 26, 2018, Thomaskantor Gotthold Schwarz performed works by Johann Sebastian Bach and Heinrich Schütz with his Concerto Vocale and his Leipzig Baroque Orchestra .
Once a month the Polditzer Organ Association organizes the organ dance with famous artists.
Polditz Organ Week : Every year around Whitsun, the Polditz Organ Society celebrates its organ with a festival week and a music program.

Varia

Polditz owes the Henry Purcell monument in front of the church to a concert performance of Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas during the sixth “Polditz Organ Week”: the sculptor Joachim Zehme from Dresden unveiled it in 2003 after the concert performance of Purcell's “King Arthur”.
The organ is said to have been rebuilt in 2003 for the town church in Hämeenlinna .

literature

Cornelius Gurlitt : Polditz. In: Descriptive representation of the older architectural and art monuments of the Kingdom of Saxony. 25th booklet: Office governance Döbeln . CC Meinhold, Dresden 1903, p. 185.