Hospitalkirche – Hospital Church
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The impression you get from outside is misleading: if you stand in front of the Hospital Church at Unteres Tor, you think it is a small, gothic-style church. It may have a plain exterior, but the opulent baroque interior is absolutely astounding.
A real gem! Over one hundred scenes from the Old and the New Testament are painted on wooden panels in the coffered ceiling and on the upper gallery supported by wooden pillars. The pictures were painted by Heinrich Andreas Lohe from Hof after motives taken from the 1688/89 illustrated Bible by Merian and Osiander.
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The centrepiece, the altar shrine, contains three figures: Mary with the infant Jesus, St Catherine on the left and, probably, St Barbara on the right. On the right wing of the altar, the birth of Jesus and the adoration by the three Magi are depicted. The church fits in well with the rest of the former hospital around it: the cellar building, the beneficiaries’ house, the convent hall and the official’s house on the north side of the courtyard still remain intact.
 The coffered ceiling in the Hospital Church. |
For some people in Hof the name “Hospitalkirche” is unaccustomed. They only know it as “Siemakerng” (the seven o’clock church) because during summer Sunday services always used to begin at 7 in the morning. Now it is no longer necessary to rise and shine so early as services are now held at 7 p.m. all year.
