as early as the 12th century, glattbach was mentioned as a branch of saint agatha's parish at aschaffenburg. there is, however, no mention of a church until the 17th century. in 1682, a chapel in saint nicholas's honour was built, and consecrated by the capuchin priest martin von cochem, a famous repentance preacher and folk writer. at that time, the community had some 180 to 200 inhabitants. the chapel stood with its graveyard and schoolhouse on the lot now occupied by the church. the chapel was not standing very long. already by 1727, a new church was being built there, the "magdalenenkirchlein" (roughly “mary magdalene’s little church”). it was built in the astonishingly short time of four months. services were held only once a month, on a weekday. only from 1775 onwards does it seem that there were services on sunday – and even then only over the winter – mostly given by a capuchin priest. in 1890, a local chaplaincy was instituted, which was raised to parish on 14 december 1922. ten clergy worked as local chaplains in glattbach. the first parish priest was christian benz from weibersbrunn, who held this post for 25 years before he died in an accident on 20 december 1948. in 1899 the "magdalenenkirchlein" was torn down. building work then began on today's gothic revival parish church, "maria himmelfahrt" (“assumption of mary”), which was consecrated on 15 august 1901. there were some 700 catholic parishioners in those days.