Maria am Wasser Church

Exterior

The exterior of the church is simply kept in a yellow tone with white accents. The main entrance to the church is on the north side through a segmental arch door, above whose frame there is a frieze with a keystone. The frieze shows oak branches, the keystone has the inscription "JESUS" and a colored crown above it. An older entrance through a round arch door was located on the southern Elbe side and is bricked up.

The corners of the church are framed with simple pilaster strips that run into a strong main cornice. On the west side of the church, above a gable, is the octagonal bell tower in rustic Baroque forms with a cavetto and a subsequent onion dome. Three of the four bells of the Hosterwitz church were cast by Rincker in 1993. The tower is topped by a weather vane. Up to the weather vane, the church is 27 meters high.

Interior

The interior of the church is topped by a flat ceiling over a high cove and strong cornice. The space is occupied by two-story galleries on the north and south sides, dating from the first half of the 18th century. They are built on sturdy, simple columns. The balustrades are divided into rectangular fields.

In the west, there was originally also a two-story gallery. The Grabner organ stood in the second gallery, and the so-called "glazed chairs," the prayer rooms of the plantation owners, were installed in the first. A double outdoor staircase led to the first gallery of the west wall. In 1863, the church received a larger organ, for which the prayer rooms were demolished. The new single-story organ gallery dates from 1863 and now occupies the west side. The outdoor staircase was demolished in 1896, and a small vestibule was added to the west of the church. In the east, opposite, stand the altar and baptismal font. The church offers seating for 382 worshippers.

Altar and Pulpit

The altar was created in 1644 by Conrad Buchau († 1657) from sandstone. It was moved to the choir in 1774 and connected to the wooden pulpit, which until then had been on the south side of the church. In the process, the central part of the altar, which probably depicted the crucifixion, was destroyed. Until the renovation in 1930, larger parts of the Buchau altar were preserved, such as the relief of Jonah being spewed out by the whale. It is now located on the northern church wall in the altar area. A high relief depicting the Last Supper scene is preserved in the predella of the Buchau altar. Around 1900, Cornelius Gurlitt also counted the crowning Christ figure with the banner of faith as part of an older altar. Further figures, such as the seated evangelists Mark and Matthew, were located near the gable above the pulpit. This is two meters wide and seven meters high. The pulpit basket is divided into uniform fields. Statues of Simon Peter and John were located on consoles next to the columns framing the pulpit.

The portico pulpit altar was renovated and partially renewed in 1930. In the process, the figures of the altar, except for the crowning Christ, were removed. The keystone of the former pulpit door with the year 1774 is now in the sacristy.

Baptismal Font

The old baptismal font of the church probably dates from around 1500. The basin has a diameter of 53 centimeters and a height of 30 centimeters and is designed in Gothic form with tracery. The stem supporting the basin is about 50 centimeters high. The baptismal font has not been used since 1860, but after its restoration, it is now back in the church.

In 1930, the church received an Empire-style baptismal font, which a sculptor named Dost had created in 1796 for the church in Lichtenstein. There, the baptismal font was still in use at the end of the 19th century and was later discovered in another church by the State Office for Monument Preservation, restored, and moved to Hosterwitz. The baptismal font still in use today stands on gilded lion claws and shows putti heads on the baptismal basin.

Windows

The church has lateral basket-arch-like windows with deep reveals, which refer to the original layout before the reconstruction. They were provided in 1774 with a strong, now white-painted frame with a keystone.

The three windows in the altar area have deep reveals internally, but externally they do not differ in shape from the other windows. The two large stained-glass windows are dated to 1896. A small window painting in one of the choir windows dates from 1555 and depicts the Crucifixion.

Organ

The first mentioned Hosterwitz organ was a small portable instrument around 1635. In 1680, under Pastor Gottfried Rüdinger, a new organ was commissioned from organ builder Christian Grabner, who completed it by 1682. In the following years, repairs to the instrument were necessary, which had been damaged especially after the church reconstruction in 1704. The organ, which had 8 stops for the manual and 3 for the pedal, was played until 1863. In 1862, the congregation commissioned a new organ from Urban Kreutzbach, which replaced the old Grabner organ in 1863.

The Kreutzbach organ "shows 82 pipes in 8 fields, and in total it has 970 pipes for 18 registers." In 1917, the tin pipes had to be handed over for melting down and were replaced by zinc pipes in 1926.

The Elbe flood in August 2002 severely damaged the organ. In 2004, it was restored by the organ building and restoration workshop Rainer Wolter, and the facade was reconstructed. It was re-consecrated in a service on Easter Monday 2004.

Church Decorations and Tombs

In the altar area on the north side is a painting of the Hosterwitz pastor Gottfried Rüdinger, created in tempera colors and overpainted with oil after Rüdinger's death in 1680. It is surrounded by an elaborate wooden frame, "painted green and gold, laurel garlands, over which vine tendrils lie." Below the painting is a sandstone drapery with an upper festoon, containing Rüdinger's life data.

West of the painting, next to the sacristy door, is a tombstone of a Bohemian exile who died in Hosterwitz in 1660. Further west, a memorial plaque for Lieutenant Colonel Georg Wilhelm Trosche is immured. The simple bronze plate contains the life data of Trosche, who was buried in the old Frauenkirche in 1694 and was reinterred in the crypt of the Hosterwitz church after its demolition.

On the south side under the galleries is a stone with the inscription "AS 1638". This is the tombstone of the Pillnitz castle preacher Abraham Steinbach, who died in 1638 and was buried in the "Maria am Wasser" church.

In the altar area on the south side stands the tomb of Pastor Rüdinger's first wife, Rosina Rüdinger, who died in 1641 at the age of 28. The 80-centimeter-wide and 173-centimeter-high sandstone slab shows Jesus on the cross and a kneeling woman at its foot, with her hands placed on the cross.

Not preserved are the pictorial representation of the resurrected Jesus, created by Heinrich von Dörnberg (1831–1905), and a Gethsemane scene by Johann Traugott Noack.

A cemetery at the church probably existed since the first Hosterwitz church was built. Since around 1500, the "old churchyard at the church" was demonstrably used by the villagers as a burial site. Access to the churchyard is from the north side of Kirchgasse through two round gates.

From 1734, due to a shortage of grave sites, only members of the electoral court and pastors of the parish were allowed to be buried in the churchyard. A second cemetery, laid out west of the church in 1734, was abandoned in 1867 due to frequent floods and secularized in 1896. Since 1870, burials in Hosterwitz have mainly taken place in the third cemetery not far from Keppschloss.

Many of the sandstone graves in the churchyard are no longer preserved today or are illegible due to ivy growth. One of the most artistically significant graves is the sandstone tomb for the silver page Christoph Ferdinand von Brandenstein, who drowned in the Elbe in 1788. The "roughly effective work" shows a weeping boy on a mighty column with an inscription tablet, leaning with his right arm on a vessel from which water flows. His left hand holds the torch of life into the water.

A curiosity, the so-called "Schnuff-Stein" (Schnuff Stone), is located on the southwestern outer wall of the churchyard. During a stay in Hamburg, the composer Carl Maria von Weber and his wife acquired a capuchin monkey from sailors, which he named Schnuff Weber and had by his side in Hamburg and later in Dresden. Especially in Dresden, he caused a stir with his pet. The sculptor Joachim Zehme dedicated an epitaph to the tame monkey, a reproduction of which is now hidden on the wall of the Hosterwitz church. Separate signposts guide interested visitors to the stone.