"This miserable abuse": Ramsau Church must save - contact heating seems the solution

Created: 2022-11-02 10:27 p.m

Pure idyll: The Ramsau church is world famous - and was a popular motif for many painters.

© Piper

The Ramsauer Kircherl is very small - and yet world-famous.

The parish worries about loss of visitors in winter.

Because heating the whole church will be too expensive.

Ramsau –

The small parish in the mountaineering village of Ramsau in the Berchtesgadener Land wants to counter the extremely high electricity costs with a special type of contact heating.

"After all, no one should be cold," says church orderly Manfred Weber.

But 13,000 euros in heating costs are simply too much for the parish, which is plagued by leaving the church.

Modern seat heating in Ramsauer Kircherl - "It's steadily going downhill"

Because the income has been falling for years.

"It's steadily going downhill," says Weber.

Only 1,280 parishioners pay to be a member of the church.

There used to be 1500, around 20 years ago.

This year, 13 people have already said goodbye, last year there were 17. "This miserable abuse," complains Weber.

He is to blame for the misery.

"It's disgusting how the church handled it," he laments.

But where there is a lack of income, expenditure should not increase.

"A new heating system is needed," says Manfred Weber.

There is no alternative.

Skipping church services is out of the question.

"It's just not possible." The little church must remain something that can be experienced - no matter how cold it is outside, he thinks.

And even if an average of only 33 people attend a service in St. Sebastian.

"The question of when a church will pay off should never be asked," says the church curator.

That's why he researched what was suitable for the Ramsauer Kicherl.

Energy Crisis: New heater only heats when someone sits down

The listed church is more than 500 years old, convection heating would have lost too much heat, explains Manfred Weber.

In addition, they contradict a gentle heating of listed places of worship.

But then the dedicated church curator found a solution: a contact heater that seems to have been made for the Ramsau church treasury.

It only heats when a person sits down.

The seat and backrest are therefore only heated as required - and only during the heating period between October and April.

There are comparable contact mats for car seats, for example.

If the churchgoer gets up, the heating process also ends.

"We could save 80 percent that way," says Weber happily.

"80 percent of 13,000 euros is a lot of money." The investment also makes sense because the old church heating system is 42 years old.

Church caretaker hopes for support from Munich and Freising

Manfred Weber does not yet know how much the installation of the new system will cost.

But he hopes that the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising will support the parish.

After all, the Ramsau church is world-famous.

Not only because it was a motif for a number of landscape painters at home and abroad.

Former US President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890-1969) also once painted the church from a color photograph.

His picture became a Christmas present for the White House staff in the 1960s.

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It was also printed in the European edition of Stars and Stripes, the US Forces daily.

The Ramsau parish has already sent the request for support to the archdiocese.

Now she is waiting for a response.

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