Immaculate Conception of Mary (Meiningen)

Church of the Immaculate Conception of Mary

View from the west of the choir

The Church of the Immaculate Conception of Mary was a Roman Catholic sacred building in the city of Meiningen . It was built in 1881 by master builder Arnold Güldenpfennig and replaced in 1972 by the newly built church “Our Lady” .

history

In 982, the parish church of St. Martin was first mentioned in a document in Meiningen. The city belonged to the diocese of Würzburg from 1007 to 1994 and to the Hochstift Würzburg from 1007 to 1542 and then came to the county of Henneberg . This introduced the Reformation in 1544 and Meiningen became Protestant . A small part of the population remained Catholic and from then on lived in the diaspora . In 1802 the first regular Catholic services were held again in a private house and from 1804 in the church of the former Franciscan monastery . The Meiningen Catholics belonged to the parish Wolfmannshausen at this time . With the legal recognition by Duke Georg II of Saxony-Meiningen , the Catholic parish of Meiningen was founded on December 11, 1867 . In 1874 the congregation acquired a building with a hall in Mauergasse, which was converted into a mission house by 1875 . In 1878 the parish curate Friedrich Roth planned to build a church in place of the mission house, which was soon implemented.

On October 23, 1881, the Würzburg bishop Franz Joseph von Stein consecrated the new church with the name “Immaculate Conception of Mary”. The ceremony was accompanied by the Meiningen court orchestra , with guests including Duke Georg II, the Meiningen State Ministry, the colonel and the officer corps from the 2nd Thuringian Infantry Regiment Meiningen , Protestant clergymen and school directors. On November 28, 1881, Cardinal Gustav Adolf zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst visited the choir window “St. Petrus ”donated the church, followed by a solemn concert with the court orchestra under the direction of the conductor Hans von Bülow and the composer Johannes Brahms .

In 1885 a Catholic school was established at the church. In July 1894 a state church treaty led to the re-establishment of the Catholic parish of Meiningen in the diocese of Würzburg and the church became a parish church . In 1910 the parish had 674 members. In 1912 a new rectory was built south of the church. Due to a growing number of members after the Second World War, the church became too small and a new building was considered in 1950. The church of the "Immaculate Conception of Mary" was finally demolished in 1967 and replaced by a modern church building on the same site, consecrated in the name of "Our Lady" until 1972 .

Building

As early as 1837, the parish held collections for a church building in Meiningen, whereby 3,600 guilders were collected by 1843 . After two planned property purchases on the edge of the English Garden failed, the Meiningen Catholic Church, founded in 1867, was finally able to acquire a property in 1874 in Mauergasse, located on the western edge of the old town. Construction of the new church began in 1880 under the cathedral master builder Arnold Güldenpfennig from Paderborn . The costs totaled 13,000 marks, some of which were borne by numerous donations. The donors included several Bonifatius societies and princes, members of the Meiningen ducal house, Cardinal Gustav Adolf zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst and Helene Freifrau von Heldburg . The architect Emil Pietschmann from Meiningen assisted the cathedral builder with the construction of the church. Mainly construction companies from the Meiningen region were used, companies from Paderborn, Dresden , Berlin and Würzburg (glass windows) were used for special work . By the end of 1881 a single - nave, neo-Romanesque hall church with a saddle roof, a church tower on the east side and a choir in an apse with seven windows on the west side was built. The church had a three-sided gallery , ceiling paintings and statues and pictures of saints on the Romanesque choir arch . The organ came from the organ building company Oswald and Paul Dinse from Berlin, which Hans von Bülow financed with 1,000 marks. The interior was completed in February 1882 with a Romanesque altar made by the Barth Art Institute in Würzburg.

swell

• Catholic parish “St. Marien “Meiningen.
• "Chronicle of the Catholic Parish in Meiningen". Meiningen, 1995.
• Kuratorium Meiningen (Hrsg.): Lexicon for the history of the city of Meiningen. Bielsteinverlag, Meiningen 2008, ISBN 978-3-9809504-4-2 .

Web links

Commons : Immaculate Conception of Mary  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} "Chronicle of the Catholic Parish in Meiningen". Meiningen, 1995.
2. ↑ Catholic Sunday Gazette. Würzburg, October 30, 1881.
3. ↑ Kuratorium Meiningen (ed.): Lexicon for the history of the city of Meiningen. Bielsteinverlag, Meiningen 2008.

Coordinates: 50 ° 33 ′ 58.5 ″  N , 10 ° 24 ′ 47.5 ″  E