City Church of Our Lady (Heldburg)
The Evangelical Lutheran town church of Our Lady (Marienkirche) in Heldburg in the Hildburghausen district in Thuringia was built at the beginning of the 16th century.
location
The church is located in the center of the village on the market. It used to stand in the middle of the former cemetery. It shapes the cityscape.
history
The inscription in the choir shows that the town church was built in 1502. In 1522 the first Protestant church service was held in the shell. In 1537 the church was completed. The compact church tower was completed in 1614. In the basement with the sacristy, which is spanned by a ribbed vault, there are remains of a previous building. From 1819 to 1828 the community had extensive repairs and a redesign of the interior carried out. The wooden tower dome with slated tail dome with arcade top and arrow-like tip comes from the renovation in 1849 after a lightning strike in 1848 set the tower on fire. Since then the tower has been 45 meters high.
The last extensive interior restoration, revealing the original color, took place from 1978 to 1981.
description
The three-aisled nave is supported by six columns. It is spanned by wooden vaults that replaced a coffered ceiling in 1819 . There are ribless cross vaults above the aisles, and a pointed arched barrel vault above the central nave . It is provided with tightly laid ribs and thus gives a Gothic impression. In 1554 the nave was provided with galleries . The side galleries were removed at the end of the 1970s. The retracted choir with a final yoke and two long yokes has star vaults. The three pointed arched, throat-profiled end of the choir windows are adorned with colored glass paintings that were made by the Heinersdorf glass painting establishment in Berlin in 1892. The nave and central nave vaults are about the same height, while the walls of the nave are only about half as high as those of the choir. There is an ogival triumphal arch between the two components.
The interior of the church is designed in a late Gothic style. The sandstone reliefs on the former pulpit and the font from 1537 date from the late Gothic period (1536) . Only fragments of the font were left. The Franconian sculptor Bernhard Friedrich has professionally repaired it. On the right east wall of the nave there is an alabaster epitaph from 1547, which commemorates Mayor Claus Backheuser and his wife Agatha. The group of figures in front of it, Mary with the baby Jesus, Peter with a key and Paul with a sword, dates from 1900 and was originally in the monastery church at Reinhardsbrunn.
The organ was built between 1823 and 1825 by the Heldburg organ builder Laurenz Konrad Adam Heybach. The early romantic instrument on the west gallery has a neo-Gothic organ case, two manuals and pedal as well as 25 stops.
The three existing bronze bells date from 1483, probably from the Veilsdorf monastery , 1626 (the measuring bell) and 1957. In addition, the baptismal bell with a diameter of 70 centimeters rang in the church tower until it was melted down in the First World War. It was cast in 1319 and was the oldest bell in the then Duchy of Saxony-Meiningen .
Web links
- Information about the church on the website of the church district Hildburghausen-Eisfeld
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lieselotte Swietek: Churches in Thuringia , Thuringia publishing house, 1992, ISBN 3-86087-023-8 , pages 44/45
Coordinates: 50 ° 16 ′ 48.8 ″ N , 10 ° 43 ′ 31.7 ″ E