City Church (Waltershausen)
The town church "Zur Gotteshilfe" in Waltershausen is a Protestant church. It houses the largest baroque organ in Thuringia . The church is the parish church of Waltershausen and one of around 20 churches that were rebuilt after the destruction in the Thirty Years War under Duke Friedrich II .
history
In the Middle Ages, the Liebfrauenkirche , a late Gothic hall church, was first mentioned in a document in 1326 . The tower was built in 1458. The lower half of today's tower is still preserved from this period. During the Thirty Years War , the Protestant Waltershausen was captured several times and the church was desecrated and used as a horse stable. The inventory was damaged or stolen. It was not until Duke Ernst the Pious that the church was restored and re-consecrated in 1667. However, the building no longer met the needs of the Gotha court society, and the space available in the nearby castle chapel at Tenneberg Castle was also insufficient .
The first drafts for the project for a new church were submitted in 1716 by the Gotha construction director Wolf Christoph Zorn von Plobsheim and in 1719 by the court architect Johann Andreas Tütleb , but both were rejected by the Waltershausen city council due to the city's financial situation. With a revised draft in 1719 von Plobsheim succeeded in convincing both the city council and the duke. The foundation stone was laid on October 9, 1719 by the Tenneberg bailiff Georg Christoph Röhn. On November 8, 1719, the Duke himself laid the cornerstone. On December 19, 1720, the straightening bouquet was placed on the lantern of the church tower. Since the lantern did not appeal, it was replaced by the current bell-shaped one in 1722. The ceremonial inauguration took place on November 24, 1723 in the presence of the court, the clergy and the clergy of the Waltershausen diocese. Von Plobsheim could no longer experience this event; he died in 1721. His deputy and the building supervisor, Johann Erhard Straßburger (1675–1754), and the chief building director Wurm continued and completed his work. The laying of the foundation stone and the inauguration were documented by commemorative coins and medals.
After a few fires that also damaged the upper part of the church tower, it was last renovated in 1865 by master builder Beauregard based on the baroque model from Plobsheims and got its present shape.
restoration
Between 1992 and 1996 restoration work was carried out inside the church for the last time, from 1995 to May 1998 the organ was also restored by the Waltershausen Organ Building Society. In December 2004 a new middle bell was cast in Passau and consecrated on December 26, 2004, the old bell, which had become unusable due to a casting error, is now in front of the church. In 2009 the external plaster was renewed on the north side.
Structural matters
The nave was built from local gray-red sandstone. The building is based on the design idea of bringing the church community together, letting them take part in the worship service on an equal footing. A building in the form of a rotunda fits most appropriately as an architectural implementation , but the architect realized a more elliptical floor plan of the interior and gave the enveloping building the shape of a short-winged Greek cross , the axis dimensions of the room are 22.5 m. The main entrance is from the west through the tower. In the passage there are some very well-preserved relief grave slabs on the walls. Supported on eight wooden pillars, three galleries were built, these are reached via the staircases on the east and west side, the interior thus offers space for around 1200 people. Only the tower remained from the old structure.
The magnificent ceiling fresco comes from the Gotha court painter Johann Heinrich Ritter (1685 / 90-1751).
organ
The largest organ of the Bach era was built into the church ; the organ is located on the east side, above the altar and pulpit, and is on one axis with them. On the opposite west side of the church, at the same height as the pulpit, the Duke's lordship box was added on the lower gallery and the Saxon-Gothic coat of arms was painted on. The interior of the church was decorated in the baroque and courtly spirit, extremely splendidly and richly. The ceiling fresco Holy Trinity , created in 1723 by Johann Heinrich Ritter (1685 / 90-1751), completes the spatial impression by extending the existing architectural elements into a false dome. Eight allegorical female figures have been inserted into the masterfully executed illusionistic architectural painting; they represent love and cleverness, hope and patience, temperance and steadfastness, as well as loyalty and faith. A group of angel figures fills the top of the room and points to the one bedded on clouds in the center Holy trinity . The female figures hold cartouches with the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7).
→ Main article: Organ of the town church (Waltershausen)
meaning
The church is a baroque central building and, in terms of layout and construction, is the forerunner of the Dresden Frauenkirche built by George Bähr from 1726 to 1743 . It fulfilled a double function as a town and residential church next to the St. George's Chapel in Tenneberg Castle. Today it is considered to be the most important Protestant central building in Thuringia. The floor plan and the construction ensure that the outermost squares are equidistant from the center of the evangelical preaching church, the pulpit, and that the clergyman is facing the community during the service.
From 1945 to 1960, catholic services were also celebrated in the church, following this tradition, ecumenical prayers and concerts are sometimes held here. In Waltershausen, too, the town church was the center of the emerging citizens' movement in autumn 1989 .
Concerts take place in the church, for example as part of the Thuringian Organ Summer and the Thuringian Bach Weeks , and there is also the Waltershausen Church Night .
literature
- Hartmut Ellrich: "Waltershausen" - castle and residential churches in Thuringia . Ed .: Evangelical Lutheran Regional Church in Thuringia. Wartburg-Verlag, Weimar 2007, ISBN 3-86160-163-X , p. 128-132 .
- Ulrich Nikolai: Thuringian baroque churches . In: The Thuringian Flag. Monthly magazine for the Central German homeland . Booklet 11. G. Neuenhahn Druck und Verlag, Jena 1933, p. 641-644 .
- Flyer of the Evangelical Luth. Waltershausen parish
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 53 ′ 53 ″ N , 10 ° 33 ′ 21 ″ E