Østermarie Kirke

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The Evangelical Lutheran Østermarie Kirke in Østermarie on the Danish island of Bornholm is about 5 km east of Østerlars and 8 km west of Svaneke . Bornholm had two Marienkirchen in the Middle Ages . To distinguish them, the western church was named Vestermarie Kirke and the eastern Østermarie Kirke. Both gave the surrounding villages their names: Vestermarie and Østermarie.

new church
new church

The old church

old church, to the left of it the rune stones
old church

In a document from 1403 there is talk of the "Eastern Community of the Holy Virgin", from which one can conclude that there was a Church of Mary there. The church belonged to the Archdiocese of Lund until the Reformation and was then royal property until the 19th century.

The Romanesque church probably came from the 13th century. It consisted of a ship, choir , apse and a wide west tower, as well as two arms houses to the south and north of the ship, added a little later . The old church is made of field stones and limestone quarders . Some rune stones were also used for the construction, one of them as a threshold. These rune stones are now in the cemetery next to the church. The peculiarity of the building was the heavy twin vault of the ship, a double barrel vault made entirely of stone and supported by two columns. The roof was covered with sandstone from Nexø . Such massive stone roofs are common in Irish churches, but are very rare in Scandinavia. Barrel vaults in the round aisles of the Bornholm round churches are known. The church ruins still show rudiments of this construction. The interior of the church was frescoed in the late Middle Ages . The paintings were partially renewed under King Christian IV in 1636. At the edge of the cemetery stood a separate massive bell tower, which originally served as a gate tower in the churchyard. The bell tower had partially collapsed in 1871. In 1880, investigations into the structural condition of the four-story church tower revealed that it was no longer safe and that renovation was hardly possible. In 1885 the decision was made to demolish the old church and build the new church, as the liturgical requirements also made it necessary to expand the church. When the church tower was demolished, it was found that the foundation had originally been laid for a narrower tower.

The demolition of the church, which had already been initiated, was stopped on the instructions of a special survey by the Bornholm churches to preserve the medieval Bornholm churches. The church ruins were then placed under the protection of the Danish National Museum . The apse, choir and part of the nave have been preserved. The altar structure was brought to Bornholms Museum . The baptismal font from 1250 was transferred to the new church. The pulpit was composed of parts of the Renaissance pulpit of the old church donated by King Friedrich II .

The new church

Today's Østermarie Church was built in 1891 according to designs by the Danish architect Andreas Clemmensen in the neo-Romanesque style and in the shape of a cruciform church. The simple masonry consists of polished blocks of the dark Paradise granite . The new church is located on the site of the old bell tower. It was restored in 1964 and given a new color scheme by the Bornholm painter Paul Høm .

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hans Klüche: Bornholm , Gold City Guide., 1993
  2. ↑ a b c d e Østermarie Kirke. (PDF, 2.8 MB) In: Danmarks Kirker vol. VII. Pp. 449-487 , accessed on February 6, 2014 (Danish).
  3. ↑ Østermarie Kirke. In: The Store Danske - Gyldendals åbne encyklopædi. Retrieved February 6, 2014 (Danish).

Coordinates: 55 ° 8 ′ 17.7 ″  N , 15 ° 0 ′ 58 ″  E