Unterzell Abbey

 

Unterzell Abbey was a former convent of the Premonstratensian nuns in Zell am Main near Würzburg in Bavaria in the Diocese of Würzburg.

History

Dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Cecilia of Rome, Unterzell Abbey was founded around 1230 by Hermann I of Lobdeburg. As Bishop of Würzburg, he moved the women's convent, which was attached to the Oberzell monastery. Rebellious hereditary peasants plundered the monastery in 1525 during the German Peasants' War. In 1562, under Prince-Bishop Friedrich von Wirsberg, it came under the administration of the Prince-Bishops of the Bishopric of Würzburg. In 1642, a new convent of choirwomen was formed. A dark chapter in the history of Unterzell Abbey is the fate of Superior Maria Renata Singer of Mossau, who was sentenced to death and executed in 1749 during the witch hunts in the Bishopric of Würzburg. The monastery was dissolved in 1803 in the course of secularization in Bavaria and sold to interested parties. The church interior served as a goat barn for a time. The high altar and two side altars were moved to Alt St. Josef in Oberdürrbach.

Jewish life in the former monastery

In the course of the Hep-Hep riots of 1819, many yeshiva students and other Jews had fled from Würzburg to the surrounding area, including to Theilheim near Werneck to Rabbi Mendel Rosenbaum. Rosenbaum acquired the former monastery with others and moved there in 1822 with his family and Lazarus Bergmann. Together with some of the Würzburgers who had fled, they founded a new Jewish community there and subsequently also a Talmud school. In addition to his business as a cattle and goods dealer, Rosenbaum built a colonial goods trade and a nail smithy in Unterzell. From 1825 Bergmann ran the nail smithy. After his aliyah with his wife and children in 1834, Rosenbaum's eldest son Moses Rosenbaum continued it.

Market law for Zell

Rosenbaum's economic ventures in Unterzell with the Oberzell-based high-pressure press factory of Friedrich Koenig (1774–1833) and Andreas Bauer (1783–1860) were decisive for Oberzell and Unterzell being combined as Zell am Main in 1833 and receiving market rights.

War destruction

An air raid on 31 March 1945 – after the bombing of Würzburg on 16 March 1945 – destroyed the monastery and church. The monastery church remained in ruins, while the monastery building was converted into apartments in the post-war period.

New ecclesiastical life from 1971

The owners of the church property were the former farmer Heinrich Weckesser, his daughter, and her husband. According to his own statement, Weckesser was born in the choir, which was used as a living space at the time. Since the vault above the nave was in danger of collapsing, the Würzburg District Office issued a demolition order to the owners dated 7 December 1966. Weckesser explained to the head of the construction department of the district office, government councilor Hans-Joachim Wachsmuth, that he would not comply with the demolition order; because as a pensioner, he could not afford the demolition costs. Wachsmuth suggested that he should consider selling the ruins of the church. The buyer could then bear the demolition costs. Wachsmuth thought of the Protestant Church as a possible interested party. The congregation in Zell did not have its own place of worship and could only use a room on the 2nd floor of the former school building for worship. Weckesser initially rejected a sale.

Since a solution was urgent due to the danger of collapse, Wachsmuth contacted the Evangelical Lutheran Deanery of Würzburg in January 1967. Dean Bezzel was taken by the proposal and advocated the purchase of the ruins at the Evangelical Lutheran Church Council in Munich. Because of the funding from monument protection funds, Wachsmuth contacted the chief conservator Anton Ress at the Bamberg branch of the Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Monuments. Dean Bezzel received a grant from Ress for the protection and preservation of the church ruins. To cover the demolition costs, the district committee of the Würzburg district approved a subsidy of 10,000 German marks on 6 February 1967. The general conservator Torsten Gebhard promised state funding from monument preservation funds in the amount of 100,000 DM. Wachsmuth persuaded Weckesser to sell the monastery ruins for 10,000 DM. The purchase contract with him and his co-owners was notarized in Würzburg on September 6, 1967.

The construction supervision for the securing and design work on the monastery ruins (and on the south tower) was in the hands of building inspector Luther from the Evang.-Luth. Regional Church Council. They were carried out according to the specifications of Hermann Kistner's State Office for the Protection of Monuments. The design of the church interior was the responsibility of Gerhard Grellmann. However, the position of the altar and the orientation of the congregation were fundamentally changed in later years. From the ruins of the former convent church of the Premonstratensian nuns arose the Evang. Luth. Church of Reconciliation. Its church interior includes not only the choir but also the eastern part of the nave up to the western edge of the pair of towers, covered with a flat roof. The surrounding walls of the nave could be preserved at their full height and secured from the towers to the west gable wall. Today, they form the vestibule of the Church of Reconciliation as an open courtyard. The remains of the transept wall border a small garden.