Protestant Church, Protestant church in Burgwerben, Germany.
The Protestant Church in Burgwerben is a Gothic hall church with a crossbar-like west tower and a five-sided choir, set on the northern steep slope above the Saale. Its long side wall of uneven grey and brown stone shows four bricked-up pointed arches from the original 13th-century basilica, with a grey slate roof turret and cross above the orange-red tiled roof.
The church began at the end of the 13th century as a Gothic pillar basilica. Its side aisles were removed after destruction in the Thirty Years' War, leaving the four arcades walled up in the long side wall. The buttressed choir in late Gothic forms was added only in 1581–1586, and the sheet-metal roundels with painted coats of arms on the vault ribs are dated 1586.
The church belongs to the parish of Weißenfels in the Merseburg church district of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany. Its 1586 choir vault is decorated with six metal discs painted with coats of arms, mounted on the rib consoles. The altar is a triptych painted onto a medieval stone mensa, with paired figures of the four Evangelists seated or standing before and on the Last Supper panel.
The church stands on the northern steep slope above the Saale, among vineyards, with the Burgwerben parsonage close by. The village lies in the Weißenfels district of Saxony-Anhalt, so approach on the local roads up from the Saale valley. The slope and the surrounding vines mean the building is best reached on foot from the village lanes.
The four bricked-up pointed arches visible on the outer wall are the remains of the side aisles of the original Gothic basilica, removed after destruction in the Thirty Years' War. Because of this loss, the upper clerestory windows no longer line up with the arcades below them.
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