St. Vitus (Offenstetten)
The Roman Catholic parish church of St. Vitus in Offenstetten , a district of the city of Abensberg , is a baroque church in the Lower Bavarian district of Kelheim with an eventful history that is closely linked to the history of the neighboring castle and the noble Offenstetter family residing there. This results in the special historical position of the church, which is listed as a monument and a protected cultural asset according to the Hague Convention . The parish church has the patronage of St. Vitus (feast day: June 15), who is considered one of the fourteen helpers in need.
history
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The place name Offenstetten was first mentioned in documents from the Weltenburg monastery in the 11th century . The first church - a chapel that was already dedicated to St. Vitus - is attested to the year 1280. This little church belonged to the parish of Teuerting . Since Teuerting was quite far away, the parish of Offenstetten was established in 1459 despite the small population. Around this time, a new, larger church was built in the late Gothic style. The tower substructure with an ogival window opening, the late Gothic tabernacle , a figure of the risen Christ , a figure of Mary and parts of a Gothic tower monstrance are still preserved. As founder of the first parish church Bernhard Open Stetter († 1468) applies, whose epitaph is in the church.
In the turmoil of the Thirty Years' War the village and its parish church were destroyed. Many residents died. As a result, the aristocratic Froenau family took over the castle. At the request of the new lord of the castle Caspar von Frönau († 1683), the Carmelites from Abensberg were commissioned with pastoral care from 1653 . After the death of the lord of the castle, his son, Georg Caspar Emanuel von Frönau († 1721), took over the Hofmark . He had the castle, parish church and numerous other buildings rebuilt, all of which were in ruin. Therefore he is sometimes referred to as the "second founder of Offenstetten". The construction of the parish church was carried out from 1719 to 1721 by the master builder Hans Reicherstorfer from Kelheim . The builder Georg Frönau died in the year of completion and was the first to be buried in the newly built crypt. In the following years the interior of the church took place. In 1722 Johann Gebhard fromprüfunging, a student of the Asam brothers , painted the high altar sheet . The local master carpenter Blasius Besenreither made the pulpit in 1728 and the organ case and the cheeks in 1730 . The choir stalls , the church door and the vestry cupboards were not made until 1758 by the Siegenburg master carpenter Blasius Haidenritter. A year earlier, in 1757, the first barren church through was Johann Baptist Zimmermann ausstuckiert . His student Martin Heigl designed an extensive program of images in the form of ceiling frescos with the church patron Vitus as the focus. With Zimmermann and Heigl, at the instigation of the electoral Bavarian State Chancellor Wiguläus von Kreittmayr , who had been lord of the castle in Offenstetten since 1750, two artists known throughout Bavaria came to the small town.
In 1866 the parish church was restored in neo-Gothic style, in 1905 outside and in 1910 inside neo-baroque . The last major renovations took place from 1978 to 1982 inside and from 1991 to 1993 outside. In 1982 the parish church received a popular altar with an altar stone from the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem . The altar was consecrated on October 3, 1982 by Lutfi Lahm , Archbishop of Jerusalem .
description
Dimensions
- Total inner length: 34.75 meters
- Internal length of the choir: 11.75 meters
- Inner width of the nave: 10.75 meters
- Interior width of the choir: 7.00 meters
architecture
The parish church of St. Vitus is an east-facing, single-nave hall building . The slightly narrower, slightly indented choir with a yoke and a five - eighth end connects to the five-bay nave in the east . On both sides of the choir bay are sacristies: in the south the two-storey main sacristy, on the north side an equally large secondary sacristy. On the upper floor, the sacristies open up to oratorios above the choir. The Gothic tower substructure forms the front of the choir. The only church portal in a small porch with a triangular gable is in the rear nave yoke on the south side. When you enter the interior, you first come under the organ gallery with a curved parapet. The yoke is separated by pilasters on the outside and flat pilasters on the inside , which seem to support the clearly flattened barrel vault with stitch caps that spans the entire nave. In the middle three nave bays and in four of the five bays of the end of the choir there are high, arched window openings.
The tower adjoining the choir to the east has three storeys on a square floor plan, which were taken over from the Gothic previous church. Above it is the somewhat slimmer bell storey with bevelled edges and a round-arched sound opening and a tower clock on all four sides. A heavily constricted onion dome with a tower ball and cross forms the upper end .
Furnishing
The stucco by Johann Baptist Zimmermann in the interior has simpler and more manageable forms, especially compared to Italian works of art, but still has clear references to the Rococo style typical of the time . The fresco program by the carpenter's student Martin Heigl focuses on the life of the martyr Vitus. The front end of the large ceiling fresco in the nave shows the instruction of Vitus in the Christian faith by his foster parents Modestus and Kreszentia . His martyrdom is depicted in the center: the burning in the oil boiler after he had refused the sacrifice to the main Roman god Jupiter . In the upper part of the picture he is taken up into heaven and receives a martyr's palm and a victory wreath from God the Father. In the vaults in the nave, grisaille paintings show the life of faith of St. Vitus and parables of his martyrdom. Another large fresco in the choir vault depicts Vitus in glory as the advocate of the Kreittmayr family . The coats of arms of the noble families Kreittmayr (left) and Frönau (right) appear on the choir arch.
The center of the choir is the four-pillar baroque high altar. On the main picture by Johann Gebhard, St. Vitus is presented with the heads of his foster parents, who were murdered by the Romans, with the script: “If you don't renounce faith in Christ, then you feel the same way!” Josef Gallmayr created the ornate tabernacle on the altar mess Essing . The mechanical host shrine, the figures of which were movable until the 1860s, was considered a popular sensation. Gallmayr gave another tabernacle of this kind to the Elector in Munich . The ornate eternal light to the left of the high altar was donated by Wiguläus von Kreittmayr.
The two side altars on either side of the choir arch are dedicated to the Virgin Mary (left) and St. George (right). The rococo busts of the four evangelists with their symbols on the canteens of the side altars were created by the Landshut sculptor Christian Jorhan the Elder , on the right Matthäus and Markus , on the left Lukas and Johannes . The baroque pulpit on the Epistle side between the second and third yoke from the east consists of a polygonal pulpit, the back wall with the equilateral triangle as a symbol for the Holy Trinity and the sound cover on which a trumpet angel is enthroned. On the nave walls is the neo-baroque Way of the Cross from 1916.
Precious parts of the liturgical furnishings are four Renaissance candlesticks from 1615, a baroque pomp and goblet from around 1700, a rococo monstrance, created by the Augsburg artist Johann Christian Reinhard from 1761 to 1763, and a gold-embroidered chasuble from the 18th century. Century. The organ on the west gallery still has the baroque prospect from 1730. In 1916 a new instrument by the organ builder Willibald Siemann with a pneumatic keyboard and register action was purchased. Due to significant signs of wear and tear, this was replaced in 1988 by a mechanical organ from the Regensburg company Hartmann . The organ, consecrated on July 10, 1988 by Auxiliary Bishop Wilhelm Schraml , has two manuals and a pedal .
Funerary monuments
In the parish church there are numerous grave monuments of the various lords of Offenstetten. The epitaph of Bernhard Offenstetter, the founder of the first parish church in town, is located between the high altar and the choir stalls. A family grave plaque of the Preysings , who were later owners of Hofmark Offenstetten, is placed in the rear area of the nave directly under the staircase and below the pulpit is the epitaph of Johann Jacob Aicher († 1632), who was at the time of the destruction of the village, castle and church was Hofmarksherr in 1632. Caspar von Frönau, the lord of the castle immediately after the Thirty Years' War, has a grave tablet next to the church portal; his son Georg Caspar Emmanuel von Frönau is commemorated with an epitaph in the chancel, opposite the grave tablet of Bernhard Offenstetter. Georg von Frönau was the builder of today's parish church and thus the successor church to the one built under the Offenstetter. For the founder Wiguläus von Kreittmayr († 1790) and his wife Maria Anna († 1801), elaborately designed classical grave monuments by the Munich sculptor Roman Anton Boos , the pupil of Ignaz Günther and Johann Baptist, were erected on the nave walls next to the side altars in 1794 Straub was.
literature
- Catholic Parish Office Offenstetten (Ed.): Parish Church of St. Vitus in Offenstetten . Brochure, available from the Church literature booth.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h History of the parish . Online at pfarrei-offenstetten.jimdo.com. Retrieved September 23, 2016.
Coordinates: 48 ° 48 ′ 13.1 ″ N , 11 ° 54 ′ 26.9 ″ E