Augustinian Church (Mainz)

View of the Augustinerkirche in Augustinerstraße from the southeast, June 2013

The interior of the Augustinian Church. Looking east into the choir.

The Augustinian church of the former Augustinian hermits in the old town of Mainz is today the seminary church of the seminary of the Roman Catholic diocese of Mainz .

history

The church was built from 1768 to 1771 in place of the Gothic church building on Augustinerstraße, which was built from 1260 onwards. The builders were Augustinian hermits, who had also built the previous building and whose fraternity existed from 1260 to the Imperial Deputation Main Council of 1803. The builder is not known.

After the abolition of the monastery in 1803, the ensemble of buildings became the seminary of the recently rebuilt diocese and the church became a seminary church. The Augustinian Church was not destroyed in the Second World War.

Special occasions

From March 13 to 20, 2018, the body of the former bishop of Mainz and former chairman of the German Bishops' Conference, Karl Cardinal Lehmann , who died on March 11, was laid out in the seminary church. He was transferred from here on March 21, 2018 in a funeral procession through the old town of Mainz to the cathedral .

architecture

Group of figures above the portal. Coronation of Mary by the Most Holy Trinity, to which the church is also consecrated.

Despite its late construction, the exterior of the church is closely related to the Baroque style .

Because of the renovation with the convent and seminar buildings and other houses, only the mighty facade without a tower can be seen of the church, which stretches over the other buildings in the old town.

A group of figures, which Nikolaus Binterim created for the church, rises above the portal . It essentially represents the coronation of Mary. The Queen of Heaven is flanked by Augustine von Hippo , patron saint and rule-giver of the Augustinian order, and his mother Monika von Tagaste .

To the south and east of the church are the former monastery buildings and current rooms of the seminary, which were built between 1737 and 1753. The south wing of the monastery complex contains, based on the church facade itself, a magnificent portal with figures, which also come from Nikolas Binterim.

The interior of the church tends towards Rococo , which is expressed by the merging of nave and choir to form a unit - a concept that can increasingly be found in the Rococo style.

Furnishing

The ceiling painting with scenes from the life of Saint Augustine

Johann Philipp Stumm's organ on the west gallery of the Augustinian Church

The altars are based on the Rococo, but the late construction period of the church is evident here in that echoes of classicism can already be found. The furnishings make a very rich impression with the large altars and the ceiling paintings, which were created by Johann Baptist Enderle in 1772 .

In the church there is also the figure of the Mother of God from 1420, which was transferred here after the demolition of the Gothic Church of Our Lady in front of the cathedral in 1807.

organ

As one of the few examples in the Augustinian Church, the baroque organ of the famous Stumm family organ builders from 1773 has largely been preserved in its original form. The instrument has 31 stops on two manuals and a pedal . The playing and stop actions are mechanical.

I main work C – d 3 Bourdon 16 ′ Principal 8th' Big dumped 8th' Quintatön 8th' Viol da gamba 8th' Gemshorn 8th' Octav 4 ′ Slack 4 ′ Quint 3 ′ Super octave 2 ′ Cornett V Mixture IV 2 ′ Combal II 1' Trumpet (B / D) 8th'

II Kronwerk C – d 3 Hollow pipe 8th' Slack travers 8th' Principal 4 ′ Flute 4 ′ Quint 3 ′ Octav 2 ′ Tertia 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′ Mixture III 1' Krummhorn 8th' Vox humana 8th' Tremulant

(Repetitions) Pedal C – d 1 Sub bass 16 ′ Violon bass 16 ′ Principal 8th' Octavbass 8th' Quintbass 4 ′ Octavbass 4 ′ Mixturbass VI 2 ′

• Coupling: manual slide coupling, pedal coupling

Peal

No.	Surname	Casting year	Foundry, casting location	Weight (kg)	Nominal ( HT - 1 / 16 )
1	St. Alexander	1771	Johann Martin Roth, Mainz	210
2	St. Prosper	1771	Johann Martin Roth, Mainz	100
3	St. Johann Baptist and Paul	1715	Georg Christoph Roth, Mainz	57

The basis for today's bells in the Augustinian Church was formed by a three-part ensemble by the Mainz bell founder Johann Martin Roth (D – F sharp – H). The Roth family's bell foundry was located not far from the Augustinian Church on the edge of the old town of Mainz between Kapuzinerstrasse and Neutorstrasse. The smallest of the bells was lost in the First World War because it had to be given up as a raw material that was essential to the war effort. The bell expert of the diocese of Mainz, Günter Schneider ( Institute for Church Music Mainz Department "Organs and Bells" (Department IX / 5)) discovered a small baroque bell by Georg Christoph Roth in 2011 at a bell show in St. Georg in Mainz-Bretzenheim. Since this bell matched both the sound and the age of the double ring, it was given on permanent loan to complete the baroque triad.

Web links

Commons : Augustinerkirche (Mainz)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ^ Christiane Reves: Building blocks for the history of the city of Mainz: Mainz Colloquium 2000 . Franz Steiner Verlag, Volume 55 2002, ISBN 978-3-515-08176-4 , pp. 142 .
2. ↑ More information about the organ on the website of the University of Church Music
3. ↑ Baroque ringing of the Augustinerkirche in Mainz completely again , 57 kilograms of bells were made in the Roth bell foundry in Mainz, Mainz Diocesan News No. 1 of January 7, 2015, accessed on January 10

Coordinates: 49 ° 59 ′ 49.5 ″  N , 8 ° 16 ′ 29 ″  E