Teutonic Order Church (Frankfurt am Main)

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Deutschordenshaus and Deutschordenskirche June 2013
Coming of the Teutonic Order on the Merian engraving from 1628 (left margin)

The Teutonic Order Church is a Catholic church in the Sachsenhausen district of Frankfurt , it is part of the Teutonic Order Committees Sachsenhausen. The baroque church portal was placed in front of the Gothic church from 1709 to 1715 . The Deutschordenskirche is the only historic church in Frankfurt that does not belong to the city. After being destroyed by air raids in 1943 during World War II , it was rebuilt from 1963 to 1965.

In the Teutonic Order House next to the church is today u. a. the Frankfurt Icon Museum and a convent with a novitiate of the Teutonic Order .

history

The interior today

middle Ages

Around 1190, Kuno von Munzenberg in Sachsenhausen converted a farm yard located directly on the Main into a hospital with an attached hospital church. It is possible that at this time he also initiated the construction of the old bridge in the immediate vicinity of the courtyard, as he had large estates on both sides of the Main and wanted to connect them by building a bridge.

In 1221 Emperor Friedrich II transferred the property, which in the meantime belonged to Ulrich II von Munzenberg and which included the Sandhof , the hospital and the church in Frankfurt, to the Teutonic Order . In 1307 the church of the Teutonic Order was rebuilt and consecrated to St. Mary .

Through donations and foundations from Frankfurt and Sachsenhausen citizens, the fortunes of the people to come grew steadily. In the 13th century, at least three meetings of the General Chapter, the highest governing body of the order, took place in Frankfurt. The German Order Coming was also a place of significant political events. Emperor Ludwig the Bavarian published the Sachsenhausen appellation here on May 22, 1324 , in which he rejected the Pope's claim to the approval of a king's election. From then on, the approval of the majority of the electors was sufficient for the legitimate election of a king .

In the 14th century, an unknown priest der Kommende ( the Frankfurter ) wrote a mystical script in German that was later published by Martin Luther as Theologia deutsch and was widely used.

Reformation and modern times

With the introduction of the Reformation in 1533, the Catholic mass in Frankfurt was suspended. After the Augsburg interim in 1548, the Teutonic Order House and the church were returned to the order. However, the importance of the monastery fell sharply, as only a few Catholics lived in the city apart from the clergy. During the siege of Frankfurt in 1552, the church served as a powder magazine. The convent gradually dissolved, especially since from 1589 there were no more religious priests. In the future, the rooms served primarily as a representative settlement of the Catholic aristocracy when visiting the city, e.g. B. to the annual fairs and the imperial coronations .

In 1631 Frankfurt was occupied by Swedish troops . The Swedish Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna took quarters in the Teutonic Order House on November 17th. The Swedish occupation lasted until 1635, when the Swedish garrison was forced to withdraw with the help of imperial troops.

The Assumption of Mary
Entrance of the Teutonic Order House, around 1880

Baroque period

From 1707 on, the old order house was demolished and gradually replaced by a baroque new building over the foundations of the Gothic complex under the direction of the Frankfurt master builder Daniel Kayser , which better met the representational needs of the high and German master Franz Ludwig von Pfalz-Neuburg . From 1710, the military architect Johann Maximilian Welsch was also commissioned with some of the trades. In 1751, the facade and interior of the church of St. Maria were finally redesigned in Baroque style.

In 1734 the new Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Elector Clemens August von Wittelsbach, ordered an altarpiece for the high altar from the Venetian painter Giovanni Battista Piazzetta . The baroque painting of the Assumption of Mary became world famous. When French revolutionary troops occupied Frankfurt in 1796 , the picture disappeared from the church. It was only rediscovered in the Lille museum in 1840 . The painting has been in the Louvre since 1957 . Two figures from the baroque high altar (St. Elisabeth and St. Georg) stand on the organ gallery today. They are works by the Frankfurt sculptor Cornelius Andreas Donett († 1748), the grandfather of the Speyer bishop Matthäus Georg von Chandelle .

From secularization to the 21st century

During the secularization of 1803, the Teutonic Order Coming was the only church in Frankfurt not to fall to the city, but to Prince Friedrich August von Nassau-Usingen . On April 24, 1809, the German Order was repealed by Napoleon. In 1810 the Teutonic Order House became the seat of the War Ministry of the newly created Grand Duchy of Frankfurt . After the Congress of Vienna , the Frankfurter Kommende fell to the House of Habsburg , which returned it to the restored order in 1836. The building complex was built in the 19th century a . a. used as a military hospital and from 1848 to 1866 as a barracks for a Bavarian hunter battalion.

On March 16, 1881, the Kommende became the property of the Frankfurt Catholic community, which set up its own pastoral care district for Sachsenhausen. In 1922 a separate parish of St. Bonifatius was founded, in 1931 the church of St. Maria was raised to a separate parish ( German order ). On October 4, 1943, the Teutonic Order House burned down completely during the first heavy bombing raid on Frankfurt . The studio of the painter Karl Friedrich Lippmann , which was located in the building, was also destroyed. The badly damaged church was poorly repaired in 1947, and the ruins of the Teutonic Order were bought back in 1958 by the Teutonic Order. Reconstruction began in 1963 . On May 16, 1965, the Coming House was re-inaugurated by then Grand Master Marian Tumler .

The novitiate of the German Brethren Province of the Teutonic Order has been located in the convent wing since September 2012 .

As of January 1, 2014, the parish of the German Order was abolished as part of a reorganization of the Catholic parishes in Frankfurt. The church and the commander were assigned to the cathedral parish, the rest of the previous parish to the parish of St. Bonifatius.

  • interior

  • Main altar

  • Prayer room with baptismal font and cross relic

  • Organ loft

Frankfurt Icon Museum

The Deutschordenshaus has housed the Frankfurt Icon Museum , a department of the Museum of Applied Art , since 1990 . The rooms of the former refectory in the Deutschordenshaus were redesigned by Oswald Mathias Ungers .

The Icon Museum forms the eastern end of the Frankfurt museum bank . The museum goes back to a donation from the Königstein doctor Jörgen Schmidt-Voigt , who donated his collection of 800 icons from the 16th to 19th centuries to the city of Frankfurt in 1988.

Over time, the collection has been expanded to over 1000 exhibits through systematic purchases, loans and donations. The Icon Museum experienced its most significant expansion in 1999. It received 82 exhibits from the post-Byzantine icon collection of the State Museums of Prussian Cultural Heritage in Berlin on permanent loan .

literature

  • Friedrich Bothe : History of the city of Frankfurt am Main . Frankfurt 1977. Verlag Wolfgang Weidlich, ISBN 3-8035-8920-7
  • Konrad Bund (ed.): Frankfurter Glockenbuch . Frankfurt 1986. Waldemar Kramer Verlag, ISBN 3-7829-0211-0
  • Frankfurt Historical Commission (ed.): Frankfurt am Main - The history of the city in nine contributions. (=  Publications of the Frankfurt Historical Commission . Volume XVII ). Jan Thorbecke, Sigmaringen 1991, ISBN 3-7995-4158-6 .
  • Bernhard Müller: Picture atlas on the history of the city of Frankfurt am Main . Frankfurt 1916. Moritz Diesterweg publishing house
  • Wolf-Christian Setzepfandt : Architecture Guide Frankfurt am Main / Architectural Guide . 3. Edition. Dietrich Reimer Verlag, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-496-01236-6 , p. 13 f . (German English).

Web links

Commons : Deutschordenskirche (Frankfurt)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Fritz Arens: Maximilian von Welsch - architect of the Schönborn bishops . Schnell & Steiner artist library, Munich / Zurich 1986, ISBN 3-7954-0373-1 .
  2. ^ Website of the Teutonic Order Church in Frankfurt
  3. ↑ http://www.deutscher-orden.de/konvente/frankfurt.php

Coordinates: 50 ° 6 ′ 23 ″  N , 8 ° 41 ′ 18 ″  E