Station: [3] Chapel, Confessional

Even in the 18th century, grand confessionals were sometimes set up in Lutheran churches. One example is our "strangely barred cupboard". The poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe later told of another such example. A special feature of these confessionals is that they were connected to the pulpit, so that the pastor could come down the stairs and walk straight into the confessional.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe tells of a similar confessional that still stands in the Protestant Barfüßerkirche in Augsburg:

"But when I entered the choir of the Barfüßer church and approached the strange, barred cupboards in which the clerical gentlemen were accustomed to be present for this act; when the bell-ringer opened the door for me and I saw myself locked into a narrow space, facing my spiritual grandfather, and he welcomed me in his weak, nasal voice, suddenly all the light of my spirit went out in my heart. The confessional speech I had memorised refused to pass my lips. In my embarrassment, I opened the book I was holding and read the first available brief formula, which was so unspecific that anyone could have uttered it quite calmly. I received absolution and departed, neither hot nor cold, went the next day to communion with my parents and for a few days conducted myself as was most fitting after such a sacred act.”

The way out of the chapel will take you through the second archway into our beautiful courtyard!

All depictions: © Trüpschuch