Fortified church Großrückerswalde

Representation of the church as it was in 1583

The Evangelical Lutheran fortified church is a listed Evangelical Lutheran church building in Großrückerswalde , a municipality in the Ore Mountains District ( Free State of Saxony ). The building is one of the four fortified churches still preserved in the Ore Mountains , the others are in Dörnthal , Lauterbach and Mittelaida . The community belongs to the Marienberg church district.

History and architecture

The building stands at a height of about 610 meters on an old traffic route. It was built with building material from the region over a rectangular floor plan and a quarry stone base. The building is 18.50 meters long and 11.50 meters wide, the terrain slopes slightly to the west and the top of the wall is around 9 meters high. The walls are between 0.59 and 1.75 meters thick and plastered both outside and inside. The exterior is not structured architecturally; the high lattice windows were broken in or lengthened between 1650 and 1726. An original viewing slit with grille and lead glass panes has been preserved on the west side at a height of about 4.50 meters. For the ceiling beams, which protrude by up to 70 cm, two squared timbers lying on the top of the wall form the support and thus distribute the pressure on the masonry. Two short stitch beams are connected to the transverse ceiling beams, above which the battlement was built from seven spruce trunks. The trunks were hewn with a broad hatchet and inserted with good craftsmanship, they are about 18.50 meters long and up to 47 cm thick. Slits and right-angled hatches were cut into the walls of the battlements, about 40 cm wide from the inside and only about 12 cm wide from the outside. The battlement was probably built in the middle of the 15th century, but no precise data on the construction or use have been passed down. The skeleton of the ridge turret is formed by nine mighty beams, about the height of the ridge are the clock room and the boarded-up bell storey, the walls of which are divided by sound holes. The square, curved hood is crowned with a lantern standing on eight pillars , it closes at a height of about 28 meters with a weather vane .

The interior is defined by three galleries , one of which already existed in 1594. The gallery in the middle was built in from 1689 to 1690, it hung on covers attached to the weir floor. The third gallery was built in 1753.

Furnishing

The picture of the plague from 1583

The plague picture from 1583 hangs under the organ gallery on the west wall and shows the village during a plague epidemic . Angels of light color and light wings keep houses; the armed angels in dark color bring the plague. Above the clouds, the Trinity is represented in a medieval way of thinking . That year 72 villagers died of the plague. In this picture, the church is still surrounded by a massive 2.25 meter high cemetery wall, which was included in the defense system. The ridge turret was not yet crowned with a lantern; the annex on the west side and the stair tower to the patron's box are not shown and neither of them existed yet.
The pulpit from 1690 was attached to the south wall until 1829; it is the work of Christoph Bandt, who also installed the coffered ceiling from 1686 to 1687 . The pulpit is decorated with flat carvings. The pulpit was combined with the altar to form a pulpit altar in 1829 .
The old altar was destroyed in the Thirty Years War , the new baroque altar was erected in 1649. The altarpiece is a work by the painter Georg Öhmingen . The last supper is shown in the predella . The medallions in the volutes show the Annunciation. The essay is equipped with a representation of the Garden of Gethsemane .

The images attached to the galleries were painted over at the beginning of the 19th century - due to rationalist positions - and thus destroyed. Today the galleries are adorned with pictures that were taken over from Jöhstadt in 1929 and come from the former St. Josef Chapel. In the lower row biblical events from the New and in the upper row those from the Old Testament . The pictures are painted in the manner of Biblia pauperum . Typical trades of the Ore Mountains, such as blacksmiths, bakers, traders, miners and charcoal makers are shown on five pictures in the second gallery .

The organ was set up in 1829 by the organ builder Christian Gottlob Steinmüller from Grünhain , the instrument has 1201 pipes .

The chime includes three bells; Another small bell serves as a clock bell for the clock, which is over 300 years old.

literature

Werner Spickenreuther : Erzgebirge fortified churches (= The Christian Monument, Issue 78). Union Verlag VOB, Berlin 1986. 4th revised edition, license no. 395/3546/86.
Yves Hoffmann : Research on building history at the fortified churches in Großrückerswalde and in Mittelaida. In: Erzgebirgische Heimatblätter 28 (2006), Heft 1, pp. 10-13.
Yves Hoffmann: Investigations into the architectural history of the Erzgebirge fortified churches in Dörnthal, Großrückerswalde, Lauterbach and Mittelaida. In: Dirk Höhne and Reinhard Schmitt (eds.): Fortified churches and fortified church yards . Langenweißbach 2015, pp. 201-230, ISBN 978-395741-025-2