Thelers columns

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The Theler pillars are prayer pillars or torture pillars ( atonement stones ) in the Saxon Eastern Ore Mountains from the pre-Reformation period. Originally there were seven Theler columns on the Kirchsteig between Höckendorf and Obercunnersdorf . Today two columns still stand, one at the junction of the Kirchsteig from Dorfhainer Straße in Höckendorf and the second above the Stieflitzgrund . The head of a third pillar was placed on a road pillar from 1841 in Obercunnersdorf (at the junction of Mittelweg from Staatsstrasse 190) and re-erected in 1975. The original devotional pictures ( wayside shrines ) on the prayer pillars are no longer available.

history

Knight Conrad von Theler († 1361) comes from a Freiberg noble family who were involved in the exploitation of the ore mines in the area around Höckendorf. According to legend or tradition, he is said to have killed or stabbed the pastor in the sacristy of the church in 1332, because he had demanded too large a share of the ore yield for the church. Afterwards he is said to have taken a cruise to Jerusalem as a penance and after his return in 1334 he erected the seven prayer pillars as atonement on the Kirchsteig from Höckendorf to Obercunnersdorf. (This approx. 1.7 km long path corresponds to the route on which Jesus carried his cross to Golgata .) The other wayside shrines in the area, e.g. B. in Dippoldiswalde , Paulsdorf , Ruppendorf and Oelsa are no Theler columns, although some researchers include them.

Pictures of the Theler columns

  • Thelersäule in Höckendorf

  • Thelersäule above the Stieflitzgrund

  • Thelersäule / Wegsäule in Obercunnersdorf

  • Explanation board in Höckendorf

Web links

literature

  • Ed. Gottwald: The atonement of the knight Conrad von Theler , communications from the KS Association for Research and Conservation of Patriotic Antiquities, Issue 13, Dresden 1863, p. 52.