St. Nicholas (Pfronten)
St. Nikolaus is the Catholic parish church in the municipality of Pfronten in the Ostallgäu district .
Foundation of the parish
Older historical research has tried again and again to ascribe the foundation of the parish Pfronten to St. Magnus , the apostle of the Allgäu, “or his comrades”. The monk Magnus came to Füssen from St. Gallen in the 8th century and was buried around 750 in the St. Mang monastery he founded . However, all that can be proven is that the parish of Pfronten was awarded the “Hochalpe” by the St. Mang monastery around 1420 . So there are still Flurnamen Mangenacker, Mangebrunnen and Mangebuche known. The dialect form Mange (= Magnus) probably led to this legend.
The foundation of the parish Pfronten, on the other hand, is more likely to be due to a bishop of Augsburg. After Bishop Heinrich II was enfeoffed by Empress Agnes with the Wildbann in Allgäu in 1059, lively clearing and cultivation work began here - as long as older property titles were not affected (see also St. Martin in Pfronten) after 1100 the first church in Pfronten-Berg was built. This is indicated by the patronage of St. Nicholas . The veneration of the saint, who was gladly chosen as the patron saint on old roads , began to grow north of the Alps after the translation of his bones from Myra to Bari in 1087. There are old St. Nicholas patrons in southern Ostallgäu in Weißensee-Oberkirch and Wald and in neighboring Tyrol in Tannheim . A Romanesque statue of St. Nicholas in Oberkirch from the 12th / 13th centuries matches this. Century, whose whereabouts are now unknown.
Building history
From the first Romanesque church, which was much smaller, a shaft “with ancient steps” could have remained. They turned from the tower to the choir and were filled in during the restoration around 1930. This church was mentioned as early as 1361.
In the Gothic period, the church was adapted to the new architectural style with a higher roof and longer windows. The tower was given a pointed roof, as the oldest map of the Allgäu shows. A new high altar, built by 1480, came from the so-called "Master of the Imberger Altar". However, only a relief of a praying angel has survived from this time, which was found in 1964 under a gallery staircase. The workpiece, around 1460, probably belonged to a sacrament house .
From the middle of the 17th century, the growing population made a larger church necessary. Since the new building was delayed, the old church was first redesigned in Baroque style . The names of the painter Leonhard Bösinger (1621–1681) and the “artful” carpenter Peter Babel (1601–1691) are mentioned. In 1683 Nikolaus Babel created a new high altar, which was taken by Johann Georg Stapf (1652–1731). The altar sheet was painted by Rudolf Bösinger (1650–1698). All the artists came from the town itself.
In 1687 the foundation stone for today's church was laid. Your floor plan has almost doubled. Therefore, the rectory, which burned down in 1634, could not be rebuilt on the selected site, southwest of the church, and the property adjoining it to the south was therefore severely restricted by a very high cemetery wall. When the parish church was rebuilt, which was completed in 1692, the old tower was initially left standing. It was not until 1746 that the elegant “sculpture tower” was raised under the direction of the building directors Mang Anton Stapf (1701–1772) and Peter Heel . Its funding brought many problems and differences among the parishioners, which only ended in 1766.
The construction of today's church and the tower was also a joint effort by Pfronten artists and craftsmen.
Furnishing
After a “large piece” of the old plaster ceiling had fallen down in 1776, a fundamental renovation of the church building had to be carried out. The builder was Joseph Anton Geisenhof von Pfronten (1737–1797). The craftsmen, all of them also from Pfronten, have immortalized their names on the cover plates of the gallery columns (which have since been broken off). Most of the costs were covered by a legacy donated by the single Joseph Weber from Pfronten.
The baroque furnishings of the church, which had initially been taken over in the new building from 1687, fell victim to a simultaneous modernization in the early classicist style. Only the pulpit, created in 1705 by Nikolaus Babel and richly decorated with angels' heads, has survived.
Joseph Stapf (1711–1785) made a model for the new high altar . It is now exhibited in the local history collection in the Pfrontener Heimathaus. Stapf's nephew Johann Sigmund Hitzelberger (1745–1829) finally carried out the work until 1772. The figurative part, rococo sculptures and putti also come from him. The two classicist side altars are also attributed to Hitzelberger, which were only built around 1800 after the financial means had previously been lacking.
The right side altar hides a treasure: an altarpiece by the Venetian painter Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini (1675–1741) with the painting of the Holy Family. It probably comes from a St. Joseph chapel, which apparently was only used when the new parish church was being built. The painting is the only work of art in the parish church that was not created by a local.
The ceiling of the nave has been adorned with the fresco of a huge false dome since 1780. In the center, the patron saint, St. Nicholas, floats up to heaven, where he is greeted by the Holy Trinity and Joseph and Mary. His attribute , the book with the three golden balls, is followed by two angels below. The prince-bishop's court painter Joseph Keller signed the fresco.
organ
The organ of the parish church was built in 2009 by the organ building company Romanus Seifert in Kevelaer . The installation of the pipes of the swellable remote plant (III. Manual), which was initially planned for later, could also be carried out on the basis of a generous individual donation. The instrument now has 33 registers on the gallery and 39 registers with the remote control. Part of the pipework comes from the previous organ, which was built in 1913 by GF Steinmeyer & Co. in Öttingen with 47 registers.
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Pairing :
- Normal coupling: II / I, III / I, III / II, I / P, II / P, III / P
- Super octave coupling: III / II, III / III
- Sub-octave coupling: III / II, III / III
literature
- Annemarie and Adolf Schröppel: Pfrontener churches and chapels and their pastors , in: “Encounter” (parish letters of the parish of St. Nicholas), collected articles, ed. from Heimatverein Pfronten 2002 (The well-founded articles do not provide any source information, but are essentially based on the church accounts in the Pfronten parish archive, which were largely preserved from 1603 onwards.)
- Anton H. Konrad, Annemarie and Adolf Schröppel: The Parish of Pfronten , Schwäbische Kunstdenkmale booklet 34, Weißenhorn 1986
Web links
- Official website of the parish of St. Nikolaus, Pfronten
- Twelve bells of the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation on February 28, 2016 from the parish church of St. Nikolaus in Pfronten
Individual evidence
- ^ Diocese of Augsburg
- ^ Anton Steichele: History of the Parish Pfronten , in: Archives for the Pastoral Conferences in the Diocese of Augsburg, Augsburg 1852
- ^ Thaddäus Steiner: Historical book of place names of Bavaria , Volume 9 Füssen, Commission for Bavarian State History, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-7696-6861-8 , p. 76
- ↑ Ludwig Baumann: Geschichte des Allgäus , Vol. 1, Kempten 1883, p. 406 (illustration)
- ↑ Michael Petzet: Bavarian Art Monuments - City and District of Füssen , Deutscher Kunstverlag Munich 1960, p. 93
- ↑ Christoph Hurter's map of the Allgäu , 1619, facsimile print in: Allgäuer Heimatbücher 38. Bändchen, Kempten 1949
- ↑ Bertold Pölcher, in: Rund um den Falkenstein (Mitteilungsblatt des Heimatverein Pfronten) No. 38, p. 962
- ↑ More information about the organ on the website of the building company Seifert [1]
Coordinates: 47 ° 35 ′ 9.1 ″ N , 10 ° 33 ′ 27.5 ″ E