St. Bonifatius, Romanesque church in Zscheiplitz, Germany.
St. Bonifatius is a Romanesque church in Zscheiplitz featuring a rectangular nave with a flat ceiling and simple proportions. A square tower stands at one end, with arched openings in its bell chamber forming the dominant element of the structure.
The church is the former monastery church of the Benedictine nunnery of Zscheiplitz, built in the manner of the region's Romanesque chancel-tower churches. Its carefully laid masonry may date from the late 11th century. At the end of the 12th century the west wall was demolished and an elongated nuns' gallery added; after 1555 the nuns' choir was reduced to its ground floor and a farm building erected above it. Closed and left to decay for years, the building was restored and reopened in November 1994.
The church is used by the association Kloster Zscheiplitz – Klosterbrüder for concerts and weddings. Its interior furnishings, including the altar, stone pulpit, font, wooden gallery and ceiling, were mainly created in 1893/1894. A relief of the Man of Sorrows with a donor, from the second half of the 15th century, is the only surviving older piece.
The church is used by the association Kloster Zscheiplitz – Klosterbrüder for concerts and weddings, so it may be closed outside those events. The nave is flat-ceilinged and the nuns' gallery, added at the end of the 12th century, lies at the west end; the baroque gravestones stand on the exterior walls.
The nuns' gallery added at the end of the 12th century was dismantled after 1555 down to its ground floor, its narrow slit windows and the double arcade; a new utility building was raised above it. West of the arcade a vault was inserted, the later burial crypt, and the outer portal dates from 1926.
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