St. Elisabethkirche
Marburg
Klais Orgelbau, 2006HOMEGERMANYCopyright of all images remains with the owners - Click name to link with the source page. St. Elizabeth Church was built by the Order of the Teutonic Knights in honour of St. Elizabeth of Hungary. Her tomb made the church an important pilgrimage destination during the late Middle Ages. Construction started in 1235, the year Elizabeth was canonized, and the church was consecrated in 1283. However, the towers were not finished until 1340. It is one of the earliest purely Gothic churches in German-speaking areas, and is held to be a model for the architecture of Cologne Cathedral. It is built from sandstone in a cruciform layout. The nave and its flanking aisles have a vaulted ceiling more than 20 m (66 ft) high. The crossing is separated from the nave by a stone rood screen
as, in earlier times, the front part of the church had been reserved for the knights of the Order. The church has two towers with an approximate height of 80 m (263 ft). It served as an inspiration for St. Paul's Church in Strasbourg. The Gothic shrine of St. Elizabeth is the most important treasure of the church, but other pieces of religious art are also exhibited.
In 1963, Werner Bosch erected a three-manual organ with 55 voices. At the time it was a
trend-setting instrument but, over time, tastes changed and the intrument developed problems, mechanical and electrical. In 2005-2006 Klais built a new organ for the Elisabethkirche. It has 57 registers over three manuals and pedal with mechanical tracker action and mechanical-electrical registration. 12 pedal pipes were retained from the previous Bosch organ. The new organ is placed in the same location as the previous one, in front of the Elisabeth window, but slightly more forward to improve the acoustics. The organ’s colours are derived from those of the window.