Verena Minster (Zurzach)

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Verena Minster in Bad Zurzach
inside view

The Verenamünster is a parish church named after Saint Verena and a former collegiate church in Bad Zurzach , Canton Aargau , Switzerland , which was an important pilgrimage center in the Middle Ages.

history

The previous building dates back to the 5th century. It was created over the grave of St. Verena in a Roman burial ground. After the church collapsed, the early Romanesque nave was built around 1000.

In 1294 the choir and the nave were destroyed and then consecrated in 1347 with the newly built Gothic choir tower . Queen Agnes of Hungary is considered to be the founder of the building . After the damage caused by the fire in the Zurzach area in 1471 and the iconoclasm in 1529, a new sacristy was built on the north side of the choir in 1585. During the renovation from 1613 to 1630, the Verena vault was probably moved under the Gothic tower. After further minor changes, Johann Caspar Bagnato rebuilt it in the baroque style in 1733 . The main altarpiece of Verena's Assumption into Heaven was painted by Jacob Carl Stauder in 1744 .

After the canon monastery was dissolved by the canton of Aargau, the Verenamünster has served as a Catholic parish church since 1876. The restoration of 1975/1976 reversed the unadjusted innovations from the 19th century. The excavations under the church in the same year brought out the early medieval grave church, the Roman road, body graves from the 1st to 4th centuries and burials around 600 AD.

Even today, Saint Verena is visited by people looking for help, especially on September 1st, albeit to a far lesser extent than in the Middle Ages.

Furnishing

On the side walls there are epitaphs of the former canons, including that of Franz Leopold Ignatius von Beck zu Willmendingen .

Organ front with veil in the Verena minster

organ

Franz Josef Remigius Bossart built an organ for the Verena Minster in 1819/1820, which is now in the Reformed Church in Bad Zurzach.

The current organ was built in 1976 by the organ builder Metzler & Söhne , and renovated in 2011 by the builder company. The slider chest instrument has 27 registers on two manuals and a pedal . The playing and stop actions are mechanical.

I main work C – f 3
1. Bourdon 16 ′
2. Principal 8th'
3. Hollow flute 8th'
4th Octave 4 ′
5. Pointed flute 4 ′
6th Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
7th Super octave 2 ′
8th. mixture 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
9. cymbal 1 ⁄ 2 ′
10. Trumpet 8th'
II Rückpositiv C – f 3
11. Dumped 8th'
12. Principal 4 ′
13. Reed flute 4 ′
14th Octave 2 ′
15th Forest flute 2 ′
16. Sif flute 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
17th Sesquialter II 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
18th Sharp 1'
19th Dulcian 8th'
Tremulant
Pedals C – f 1
20th Sub bass 16 ′
21st Octavbass 8th'
22nd Bourdon 8th'
23. Octave 4 ′
24. mixture 2 ′
25th trombone 16 ′
26th Trumpet 8th'
27. Trumpet 4 ′

Verenagruft

St. Verena crypt

The crypt is now accessible from the choir by means of a tunnel from 1733 and from the southern exterior. It consists of a three-aisled hall crypt and continues the lines of the Romanesque crypts in Gothic form. The sarcophagus with the plate, which was renewed in 1613, lies beneath a decorated yoke . It shows a young woman with long hair, a jug in her right hand and a double comb in her left.

The candlelit crypt is considered a mythical place on the Upper Rhine .

Bells

In the bell room on the choir hangs a ring made of five bells , which was cast in 1916/1917 by the bell foundry H. Rüetschi zu Aarau. It sounds in the striking notes c 1 , e 1 , g 1 , a 1 and c 2 . The chime is the replacement for a chime made by Lorraine traveling pourers from 1639, the bell ornamentation of which was partly carried over to the new chime.

Church treasure

A valuable goldsmith's work from the 14th century is kept in the Verena minster, which contains an arm relic of St. Verena.

literature

  • Hans Rudolf Sennhauser : Catholic churches of Zurzach. Catholic parish Zurzach. Zurzach.
  • Hans Rudolf Sennhauser: St. Verena and the Zurzacher Münster. Catholic parish Zurzach, Zurzach 1982.
  • P. Rainald Fischer; Hans Rudolf Sennhauser: The Verenastift. In: History of the Fleckens Zurzach. Zurzach community and historical association for the Zurzach district, Zurzach 2004, pp. 165–222.

Web links

Commons : Verenamünster (Zurzach)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Information on the organ
  2. ↑ Bell data on the Swiss radio DRS1 website

Coordinates: 47 ° 35 '12.3 "  N , 8 ° 17' 35"  E ; CH1903:  six hundred and sixty-four thousand two hundred seventy-three  /  two hundred seventy-one thousand and twenty-one