Rötha, Marienkirche
Rötha, Marienkirche
The Marienkirche church in Rötha has never been finished. Today we can only see the choir of what was planned to become an unusually large pilgrimage church with two towers. Construction began in 1510 at the place where a shepherd was said to have had a Marian apparition eight years earlier. In 1520, however, the plan had to be abandoned, supposedly for financial reasons and the unfinished building was closed by a wall.
In contrast to the late Gothic building, the interior decoration of the church is in Baroque style. The pulpit, the font, the patron’s bay, the galleries and the pews date back to the time around 1720, but unfortunately they are in rather bad condition. In 1718, his building contract for the Rötha town church organ included that Silbermann had to transfer the old instrument to Marienkirche church for board and lodge and put in up there. However, the instrument was found in such poor condition that the planned restoration would have had rather little effect. So Freiherr von Friesen and Gottfried Silbermann signed a new contract in 1721 for the installation of a new organ in Marienkirche church. It was finished in 1722.
In 1942, the organ was taken out for storage, since the Marienkirche was in very bad condition. During the Bachfest in 1950, the organ was exhibited in the hall of the Old Town Hall in Leipzig and after that at the Bachausstellung (Bach exhibition) in Berlin. It was only in 1960 when the organ could be relocated to its original position after the church roof had been repaired.
Address
Marienstraße
04571 Rötha
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