Groß Gievitz village church
The village church in Groß Gievitz , a district of the municipality of Peenehagen in the Mecklenburg Lake District in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania , is a historic stone church from the 13th century. It is one of the churches in the parish of Rittermannshagen and Groß Gievitz in the Neustrelitz provost of the Mecklenburg parish of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany ( Northern Church ).
history
The church in Groß Gievitz goes back to the German settlement of Schlön in the 13th century. Around the time the first parishes were established there, construction of the church began. In addition to sacral purposes, the massive stone building also served as a shelter for the settlers. First, the nave and the east-facing choir were completed, a little later the church tower that adjoins it to the west was built. The church was probably already painted with frescoes when it was completed and was probably consecrated to St. Peter .
In the times of need of the Thirty Years War , the church partially deteriorated. In a visitation report from 1662 it is noted that the tower no longer has a roof and that repairs are necessary. By 1682 the tower vault had collapsed completely. The local rule in Groß Gievitz had probably been with the Voss family since the German settlement was founded . After Ernst Christoph von Voss (1655–1720) had received the property and thus also the church patronage in 1692 , he had repairs carried out on the church, which had been long delayed by the effects of the war, and the furnishings were renewed. The first whitewashing of the medieval frescoes probably goes back to him.
In 1793 the tower of the church collapsed again in a storm; it was rebuilt in 1802 under August Ernst von Voss (1779–1831). In the early 19th century, the cemetery around the church was also abandoned and a new cemetery was set up further north-west near the town's forge, in which a burial chapel for Count Voss was also built from 1827 to 1831 based on a drawing by Karl Friedrich Schinkel .
The widow of Count August Ernst, Luise von Voss b. Berg (1780–1865) arranged for a comprehensive renovation of the church in 1857/58. On the occasion of this renovation, the walls were whitewashed once more and the baroque furnishings of the church were painted over with a wood-colored overpainting in line with contemporary tastes and the altarpieces were covered with other motifs. The gallery in the west of the nave was enlarged to accommodate a new Lütkemüller organ, and another gallery was built on the north wall. Other changes to this reconstruction were the addition of a sacristy and the raising of the floor.
After the Groß Gievitz estate came to Nordsiedlung GmbH in 1935, they had various security measures carried out on the church, which was now in need of renovation. Among other things, the tower was connected to the west wall of the nave with an iron band.
In 1958, remnants of the medieval paint came to light under a loosening lime stain. From 1964, the wall paintings were exposed again and the original baroque painting of the furnishings and the original decorations on the altar were restored. The north gallery was removed again and an old baptismal font , which had previously been outside, was placed inside the church.
description
architecture
The early Gothic church is a field stone building with brick windows and doors . The gable triangle of the east gable also has Gothic decorative forms made of brick. The two rectangular vaulted yokes of the long house are pointed arches, but they lack the ribs . The slightly recessed, square choir adjoins to the east and the square tower to the west, on the west of which the original main portal was located. The triumphal arch as a passage from the nave to the choir has a pressed pointed arch shape, which can also be found in the zygomatic arch of the nave and in the shape of the south portal with round bars made of glazed and unglazed bricks. A sacristy is attached to the south of the choir and can be entered through the arched former priestly gate of the church. The consoles of the yokes of the nave are decorated with plastic mask representations.
The tower, which is now only accessible through a small door from the nave, still shows structural remains of an earlier cross vault , as it existed before the collapse in the 17th century. The tower probably once formed a third yoke of the nave and was connected to it by a larger passage.
The groin vaulted choir has a typical early Gothic group of three narrow pointed arch windows on the east wall. The large window on the south wall of the choir probably goes back to three such windows, it was only enlarged to its present size in the 19th century. The south window of the nave has also been expanded, while the north window still has its original shape. After its collapse, the windows of the tower were bricked up in the south and north. On the outside, the tower still has the characteristic openings for fastening the scaffolding that grows with the building, as well as a steel band that was once attached for stabilization.
South portal
Exterior facade of the tower
Vault remains in the tower
Paintings
The choir vault shows a cross in each of its four fields and ornamental paintings in the apex. In the eastern field of the choir vault you can also see an almond-shaped rainbow, Christ as the judge of the world, evangelist symbols and depictions of Mary and John the Baptist with banners. Other paintings in the choir can only be seen in fragments. B. an apostle frieze and wheels covered by the patronage stalls, possibly remains of the coat of arms of a donor family. To the right of the triumphal arch, a painted crucifixion group can still be seen faintly in the nave, in the northern embrasure of the triumphal arch a saint figure that can no longer be determined and above the triumphal arch a Deesis . The yokes of the nave and the windows have ornamental paintings.
The painting in the eastern field of the western yoke is striking. Two hybrids of human and lion step into the scene from the south. The beings have a lion body, but human heads. The creature in front has long red hair and a pointed hat that ends in a three- piece . The being behind is not colored and essentially corresponds to the being in the foreground, so that it may only be a preliminary drawing. Another, but much smaller human head with protruding hair has grown on the chest of both beings. To the north joins a fish with a human-like face, from which an archer rises and aims at the lion creatures that follow him. The meaning of the scene is unknown; it is possibly related to another painting in the eastern yoke, where a contoured figure appears to be climbing up a rib of the yoke. Since the entrance to the church was once in the west and the gallery, which hindered the view of the painting, was only moved in later, this scene, which can no longer be interpreted, was probably more important than the central pictorial work when entering the church.
Painting in the choir vault
Crucifixion scene on the triumphal arch, with mask console
altar
The furnishings of the church, consisting of altar , pulpit , patron s box and gallery, date from the transition from the Renaissance to the Baroque and, after being painted over in the 19th century, were restored to their original colors during the restoration of the church in the 1960s offset in gray, blue, red and gold.
The main picture of the altar is a scene of the Lord's Supper painted on wood , which is flanked by two twisted and marbled columns. The predella of the altar is decorated with a saying referring to the Lord's Supper, another saying is located between the middle and upper part of the altar. In the upper part, a resurrection scene can be seen again in an octagonal frame between twisted columns .
During the renovation in 1857/58, the image of the Last Supper on the altar was covered with an oil painting on canvas showing a section of Raphael's " Transfiguration of Christ ". The resurrection scene in the upper area of the altar was covered by a dove surrounded by putti. The covers remained there until the original paintings were exposed again in the 1960s.
Main picture: Last Supper
Cover of the upper altarpiece from the 19th century
Patronage box, pulpit and gallery
The patron's box to the left of the altar was once raised on a substructure and has the same decoration as the altar with volutes, twisted columns and octagonal fields. The front of the box is decorated with the coats of arms of Ernst Christoph Voss (1655–1720) and his wife Anna Magdalena von Witzendorff and dated 1707 in two fields. During the renovation in 1857, the alliance coat of arms of the Counts of Voss and the von Berg family was added to the narrow side.
The pulpit, dated 1710, is decorated with volutes and twisted columns like the altar and patron s box. The four sides of the pulpit basket show in octagonal frames the portraits of the four evangelists along with their symbols and quotations from the Gospel.
The organ loft, resting on posts, has a parapet richly decorated with panels of Jesus and the apostles and John the Baptist. Of the original 14 picture panels, two were lost by the time it was renovated in 1964 and were then replaced by inscription panels. The painter of the altarpiece is most likely to be considered as the painter of the picture panels.
pulpit
Gallery with painted parapet
Other equipment
There is an old crucifix above the sacristy door , which was once located above the triumphal arch in the choir. The crucifix is older than the altar, pulpit and gallery, but its color scheme is more recent.
The most important art treasure of the church was the painting Maria under the apple tree by Lucas Cranach the Elder, dated 1526 . The original was restored in Berlin in 1944 and is now in the Güstrow Castle branch of the Schwerin State Museum ; only a copy can be seen in the church.
The oldest art treasure in the church is the historical baptismal font , a stone baptismal font, which is probably older than the church and probably already stood in a previous building or at another location. The baptismal font shows four male masks, including one with a helmet.
The one-manual organ with a neo-Gothic series prospectus and five pipe fields with a console on the left in the gallery was made in 1858 by Friedrich Hermann Lütkemüller . Since 1967 with a modified case setting, she has been able to keep her original tin pipes standing on the gallery even during different times of war. After repairs by the organ builder Wolfgang Nußbücker from Pau am See in 1967, a general overhaul was carried out in 2008 by the organ builder Jörg Stegmüller from Berlin. The slider chest instrument has 7 registers on a manual (C – d 3 : Principal 8 ′, Salicional 8 ', Gedackt 8', Praestant 4 ', Flute 4', Octav 2 ') and a pedal (C – c 1 : Subbass 16 '). The actions are mechanical.
In the tower of the church there is a historic bell weighing 30 hundred pounds with an inscription in Gothic capitals and, according to the inscription, which cannot be clearly read, probably dates from 1395. Two smaller historical bells were once melted down.
Baptismal font
Lütkemüller organ
Cranach Madonna (today only as a copy in the church)
Examination of the real Cranach Madonna in Güstrow Castle in April 2012
Memorial plaques
Several historical memorial plaques have been preserved in the church. The epitaph of Ernst Christoph Voss (1655–1720) on the north wall of the choir, with numerous war symbols, the crucified Christ and a bust of the deceased, on the north wall of the choir, under which the married couple's tombstone is still located, is particularly decorative differs, but clearly identifies the same people. In the sacristy there are memorial plaques for two other Counts Voss as well as for the participants in the Wars of Liberation in 1813/15.
Voss tombstone
Voss memorial plaque
Voss memorial plaque
literature
- Wera Bollmann: Feldsteinkirche Groß Gievitz , Verlag Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1997
- Max Reinhard Jaehn: Organs in Mecklenburg. Rostock 2008, pp. 38, 39.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Information on the church organ
Web links
Coordinates: 53 ° 34 ′ 46.9 ″ N , 12 ° 46 ′ 57.9 ″ E