St. Ulrich (Amendingen)

The aisleless church, completed in 1755, stands in the north of the district, in the so-called Altdorf, on a hill of the Memminger Achtal and is a stop on the Upper Swabian Baroque Route.

The church stands in the northern part of the Amendingen district in the so-called Altdorf on a hill of the Memminger Achtal.

Within this churchyard wall, to the west of the church, stands the old mortuary, which has been converted into a chapel and contains a statue of the flagellated Savior.

[2] The parish was first mentioned in a document in 1341, when Heinrich III von Schönegg, Bishop of Augsburg, incorporated it into the Rot an der Rot abbey, which belonged to the diocese of Constance, with the approval of the antipope Nicholas V. The church was then incorporated into the diocese of Augsburg.

In 1422, Bishop Anselm von Nenningen imposed an interdict on the parish, which was lifted at the request of the Duke of Teck at the feast of Pentecost.

The members of the Sättelin patrician family, as owners of the Eisenburg lordship and thus of Amendingen, had become Protestants as citizens of Memmingen.

What is certain is that in 1740 the canonical visitation of the Buxheim Charterhouse reviewed the financial strength of the community for a new building, since the makeshift structure was found to be "old, unworthy, and too small.

Due to the steep slope on the eastern side and the narrowness of the site because of the adjacent courtyards in the western direction, the planners had to abandon the traditional orientation with the much larger building.

After three years of construction, it was consecrated on October 12, 1755 by auxiliary Bishop Franz Xaver Adelmann von Adelmannsfelden.

[10] It is assumed that he based the interior design on the Buxheim parish church, which was decorated by the Zimmermann brothers.

The sculptors and carvers probably belonged to the circle of Anton Sturm from Füssen[11] and Dominikus Hermengild Herberger, a native of Upper Swabia.

During this time, the entire church was renovated and the choir was equipped with a new popular altar by Jörg Maxzin.

In 2009, the retaining wall with the staircase, east of the church, had to be renovated at a cost of 135,000 euros, as its stability was no longer guaranteed.

The church used to be a place of worship of the Buxheim Charterhouse for the Catholic rural population of Amendingen and the surrounding area.

Protestant services, which used to be held in the church as well, are no longer celebrated there since the completion of the so-called Amendinger Schlössle.

In front of the portal is added a portico with a curved ornamental gable and a stitch-arched entrance lined with pilasters.

The gable of the south facade stands out with a strong profiled cornice that continues around the nave and the chancel.

The flat gable top bears a sundial and, as a crown, a golden eye of Providence with a halo of rays.

The fully electric church clock on the south side was made by Philipp Hölz from Ulm.

The altarpiece shows an intercession of St. Ulrich to the Holy Trinity to save the people at his feet from the invading Hungarians.

The ceiling fresco of the choir room shows the worship of the name of Jesus by the four continents on a staircase above the Devil's Pool.

In the nave, only the medallions with biblical figures and their attributes on the vaulted church wall have been preserved from the Baroque fresco decoration from the time of construction.

In the corners are painted the four Latin Fathers of the Church: Pope Gregory the Great with tiara and crozier, St. Jerome with trumpets announcing the Last Judgment, St. Augustine with flaming heart and St. Ambrose with mitre and beehive.

It shows the canonization of Bishop Ulrich of Augsburg at the Lateran Council in 993 by Pope John XV, who is seated on the throne below a triumphal arch.

Ignaz Waibel created the sculpture of the Good Shepherd around 1700, which is placed in the choir room[15] opposite the 18th century figure of St. Nepomuk.

In the rear part of the nave, on one side, there is a sculpture of St. Odile, made around 1500, which used to be in the small Gothic chapel of St. Ottilie on the outskirts of the village, and on the other, a statue of St. Anthony of Padua.

The 17th-century baptismal font with bell-shaped basin is considered a masterpiece, crowned by a small late 18th-century Christ and John group carved in Tilia.

In 1870 the community decided to build a new cemetery north of the church on a meadow donated by the owner of the adjacent farm.

The first expansion of the new cemetery took place in 1954 and was completed on All Saints' Day 1955 with the consecration of the large cross in the center.

It was not until 1977, after long negotiations with the city of Memmingen, that the new mortuary was built on the cemetery at a cost of 300,000 German marks and inaugurated on February 19, 1978.