Basilica of St. John the Baptist (Stettin)
The Basilica of St. John the Baptist ( Polish Bazylika św. Jana Chrzciciela ) is a Roman Catholic church in the city center of Szczecin , Poland . The church in the Archdiocese of Stettin-Cammin is dedicated to John the Baptist and has the title of a minor basilica .
history
The church was built between 1888 and 1890 in the Catholic diaspora in the Lutheran Szczecin. The neo-Gothic hall church on the plan of a Latin cross was designed by the architect Engelbert Seibertz from Berlin. The church was consecrated on September 30, 1890 by the Breslau bishop Georg von Kopp . A vicar was responsible for the Polish faithful until 1914. Until 1931, St. John the Baptist was the only Roman Catholic church in Szczecin.
During the war in 1944, the roof of the church, the spire and the bell tower burned down. During the war, the Gestapo set up in the action case Stettin against Catholics in Szczecin, in which the three priests Carl Lampert , Friedrich Lorenz and Herbert Simoleit were tortured and killed and arrested many believers. After the war, the church was rebuilt, but the original shape of the octagonal pyramid-shaped spire was not rebuilt until the 1980s. The metal gargoyles in the shape of winged dragons on the corners and portals of the church are characteristic.
The original furnishings with the neo-Gothic side altars, the pulpit and the stained glass windows have been preserved. The main altar, dedicated to Our Lady Queen of Poland, dates from 1960 and 1961. In the vestibule there are paintings with four evangelists. In the left aisle there is a memorial plaque for the 111 parishioners who died in the First World War - most of the names are Polish. In 1994 a bilingual, Polish-German memorial plaque was erected in the left wing of the transept to commemorate the arrests in 1942 by the Gestapo.
The building has been a listed building since 1984. In 2008 Pope Benedict XVI. the church to the rank of minor basilica .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bazylika św. Jana Chrzciciela on gcatholic.org
Coordinates: 53 ° 25 ′ 37.9 ″ N , 14 ° 32 ′ 56 ″ E