Station: [9] Thalbürgel Monastery Church: Antechurch

M: You only have to look at the walls and the massive arcade arches on either side to realise that this used to be an indoor space when this was still a monastery.

F: You're in the antechurch, or narthex – a place of transition from secular, everyday events into the realm of God, the spiritual space. 

M: On their path to God, believers passed through several rooms and passages: from the farmyard – today's village square – they entered the antechurch and walked towards this imposing, four-arched portal. 

Since ancient times, people had imagined the heavens as a series of embedded spheres. Of the seven spheres – God supposedly inhabited the seventh – four are on view here. And on the tympanum, the semi-circular surface with the cross, there's a Latin inscription that's now almost indecipherable. It roughly translates as:

F: On their way to heaven's gate 

This is what believers face.

For everyone who is baptised

This gate leads to salvation. Amen.

M: Once you passed through this portal, you were inside the church proper. There, the rules were set by the Benedictine monks, who followed them to the letter:

Engaging in disputes and legal conflicts was banned, as was doing business deals or trading in general. But most importantly, there were no social ranks beyond the portal. Anyone who entered the church was no longer a beggar or an aristocrat – all were to be equal before God.

Everyone present in the church had to accept that. Even now, the Lutheran Protestant congregation tries to live by that principle. This is now their church – a major responsibility that demands a lot of creative solutions.

F: The impressive portal that led from the antechurch into the nave didn't survive the centuries undamaged, despite appearances to the contrary. As recently as 1817, the last of the columns were removed and set up in the palace park in Weimar. The columns flanking the portal today are superb quality replicas that were added later. 

M: That was due to the extensive restoration work that began in the middle of the 19th century. It's largely thanks to that effort that the former monastery church is in such good shape – especially its interior.

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Inschrift zitiert nach Hallof, L. und K., Die Inschrift am Westportal der Klosterkirche Thalbürgel, in: „Zum Burgelin“, Heft 1, 1992, S. 27-40