Kirchweih Oberscheckenbach

The smallest municipality in Middle Franconia celebrates

Oberscheckenbach, a district of the municipality of Ohrenbach in the far west of the Ansbach district, is located at an altitude of 421 meters on the Gickelhäuser Bach, a tributary of the Tauber. With just under 150 inhabitants, it is the smallest of the four districts of the municipality – and the venue for the last Kirchweih of the Ohrenbach series, which is celebrated four times a year with Habelsee, Ohrenbach, and Reichardsroth.

St. Kilian Chapel as the centerpiece

The focus is on the Protestant filial chapel of St. Kilian, whose origins date back to the 8th century when the lords of Rote Veste built a chapel here for the newly baptized. After devastation during the Thirty Years' War and by French troops under General Mélac (1688), it was rebuilt in its current form in 1667. On Kirchweih Sunday, the village community gathers here for a festive service – an atmospheric start to the convivial part of the festival.

Schlachtschüssel, Pizza Night, and Village Procession

On Friday evening, the Oberscheckenbach Volunteer Fire Brigade invites you to the traditional Schlachtschüssel – Kesselfleisch (boiled pork), Blutwurst (blood sausage), and Leberwurst (liver sausage), served with sauerkraut – for which advance registration is customary. The village community association concludes the festivities on Monday evening with a pizza night. Since 2014, the historic Kirchweih procession through the village has once again become part of the festival: after a 15-year break, it now leads from the chapel through the old alleys of Oberscheckenbach.

Rootedness instead of Spectacle

As the mayor of Ohrenbach likes to emphasize, the Oberscheckenbach Kerwa is not about sheer size, but about awareness of one's own roots. The restored historic cattle scale on site is a reminder of the rural past, and the Way of Faith with its Christian symbol stones leads through the surrounding fields. Thus, the Kirchweih remains what it is intended to be: a local festival in the best sense of the word.