Pilgrimage Church of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary (Klausen)

Pilgrimage Church of Klausen, northeast view

Pilgrimage Church of Klausen, southwest view

The Antwerp Passion Altar, middle section

Former convent building

The Roman Catholic pilgrimage church of the Visitation of Mary in Klausen (Eifel) , also Eberhardsklausen , formerly a collegiate church , now a parish church , is considered to be the "most important late Gothic building in the southern Eifel and the Moselle valley ". The Marien - Sanctuary annually attracts over 100,000 pilgrims.

history

The founding of the church is associated with a day laborer named Eberhard , who, according to tradition, placed a small statue of Mary in a hollow tree for personal devotion in 1440. After a vision of the Virgin Mary there he built a 1,442 Klause to live as a hermit. Soon the healing miracles in the place were told and more and more people came to the hermitage. In the 1440s, Eberhard built the first small church, which the Archbishop of Trier Jakob von Sierck consecrated . Eberhard died in 1451. In 1456 the archbishop, probably advised by Nikolaus von Kues , founded an Augustinian canon monastery of the Windesheim congregation with canons from Niederwerth and Böddeken near the Marian shrine .

The community began the construction of the convent building and the late Gothic collegiate church with the help of a foundation from the landlords, the Knights of Esch, and the pilgrims' gifts. Its choir was completed in 1474, the sacristy and library in 1491. It was consecrated in 1502. The church has not undergone any structural changes since then. The monastery, shaped by the Devotio moderna , had great charisma in Kurtrier and beyond over a long period of its existence . In 1802 it was secularized; the church became a parish church.

Architecture and equipment

Church floor plan

The church is unusually oriented to the southeast, which perhaps goes back to the original Eberhardsklause. The late Gothic building consists of an elongated choir, which is continued in an equally wide and long central nave, which is flanked on the northeast side by an equally high aisle ( hall church ). A half-height chapel corridor and the sacristy are built on the south-west side, on the upper floor of which the once important monastery library was housed. This was followed by the cloister , of which only small remains have been preserved. All yokes are covered with reticulated vaults.

Next to the square, pointed helmet-crowned tower, which forms the north-west end, there is the Chapel of Grace with the old miraculous image , possibly Eberhard's little Pietà from around 1440 , and a more recent depiction from the 17th century . The old statue is made of oak, 20 centimeters high and 16 centimeters wide; the newer sandstone image is about 1.15 meters high and 83 centimeters wide.

Chapel of Mercy
Chapel of Grace Klausen
Chapel of grace with votive candles and votive offerings
Pietà from around 1440
17th century sculpture
Chapel of Mercy

The most important piece of equipment is a richly figured Antwerp Passion Altar , which is dated to around 1480. Two epitaphs recall the time when the collegiate church was the burial place of the von Esch family.

organ

View of the organ

In 2007 a new organ from Rieger Orgelbau was installed. It comprises 39 registers on three manuals and a pedal.

I main work C – a ³
Bourdon	16 '
Principal	08th'
Gamba	08th'
Dumped	08th'
Octave	04 '
recorder	04 '
Super octave	02 '
MixturIV	01 ¹ ⁄ ₃  '
CornetV	08th'
Trumpet	08th'
Trumpet	04 '

II Positive C – a ³
Wooden dacked	08th'
Praestant	04 '
Reed flute	04 '
Flat flute	02 '
Larigot	01 ¹ ⁄ ₃  '
Sif flute	01'
ScharffIII	01'
Krummhorn	08th'
Tremulant

III Swell C – a ³
Pommer	16 '
flute	08th'
Salicional	08th'
Vox coelestis	08th'
Transverse flute	04 '
viola	04 '
Nasard	02 ² ⁄ ₃  '
Fourth	02 '
third	01 ³ ⁄ ₅  '
Fittings V.	02 ² ⁄ ₃  '
Basson	16 '
Trompette harmonique	08th'
oboe	08th'
Tremulant

Pedals C – f ¹
Principal	16 '
Sub bass	16 '
Octavbass	08th'
Dumped	08th'
Chorale flute	04 '
trombone	16 '
Trumpet	08th'

Coupling : II / I, III / I, III / II, I / P, II / P, III / P

Eberhard kegs

A special feature of the church is the so-called Eberhardsfässchen , a wine barrel that is built into the top of the church tower and goes back to a legend .

literature

Peter Dohms : The history of the monastery and pilgrimage site Eberhardsklausen on the Moselle from its beginnings to the dissolution of the monastery in 1802 . Bonn 1968
Kurt Heydeck, Giuliano Staccioli: The Latin manuscripts from the Augustinian Canons Eberhardsklausen in the Trier City Library. Part 1, Wiesbaden 2007 ( partial digitization of the foreword )