Franz-von-Assisi-Church (Vienna)

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Parish church hl. Francis of Assisi in Leopoldstadt

The parish church of St. Francis of Assisi (also: Kaiserjubiläumskirche ; colloquially: Mexikokirche ) is a Roman Catholic parish church in the 2nd Viennese district Leopoldstadt on Mexikoplatz . The parish is in the deanery 2/20 of the Archdiocese of Vienna belonging city Vicariate Vienna . It is the holy Francis of Assisi dedicated . The building is a listed building .

history

After the newly won land through the first Viennese regulation of the Danube from 1870 to 1875 was quickly settled, a separate church and parish was lacking; the area temporarily belonged to the Praterstrasse parish . On March 19, 1898, a committee was founded to build a large and representative church on the Danube. The religious building was financed through donations and the 50-year jubilee of Emperor Franz Josef I. be paid.

The foundation stone was laid on June 10, 1900 by Prince Archbishop Cardinal Anton Josef Gruscha in the presence of the emperor and more than 100,000 people. After the death of the architect Victor Luntz in 1903, the later cathedral master builder August Kirstein continued the construction. Financial problems delayed construction progress. The keystone was laid on June 10, 1910. The provisionally completed Jubilee Church was opened on November 2, 1913 by Prince Archbishop Friedrich Gustav Piffl in the presence of Emperor Franz Josef I, the heir to the throne Archduke Franz Ferdinand , the Mayor of Vienna, Richard Weiskirchner and the President of the Church Building Committee, Prince Carlos Clary and Aldringen (1844 –1920), consecrated. During the First World War , work on the church was interrupted and resumed after the end of the war. The appearance of the Kaiserjubiläumskirche has remained almost unchanged to this day. The wooden roofs of the three main entrances were only intended as a temporary measure for the inauguration ceremony, but have remained in place to this day.

In 1928, the establishment of the "Donaustadt parish" was approved retrospectively from July 1, 1921; the church received the status of a parish church. Parish Donaustadt because the area, largely bordered by the Danube , the Northern Railway and the new Albrecht and Wilhelm barracks , was designated as the new Danube city ​​(not to be equated with today's 22nd Viennese district Donaustadt on the other side of the Danube).

Location and surroundings

At the time of construction, the square was called Erzherzog-Karl-Platz, while the neighboring two-lane bridge over the Danube , which was also used by the tram, was called Kronprinz-Rudolph-Brücke . Today the church is surrounded by Mexikopark , part of Mexikoplatz . The former Archduke Karl-Platz was renamed Mexikoplatz in 1956. A memorial stone in front of the church bears the explanatory inscription: In March 1938, Mexico was the only country that lodged an official protest against the violent annexation of Austria to the National Socialist German Reich before the League of Nations. To commemorate this act, the City of Vienna named this square Mexico Square.

The church is easy to reach with the underground line U1 from the Vorgartenstraße station ; to approach it over the bridge, choose the Donauinsel station .

architecture

Cologne church Groß St. Martin as an architectural model for the Franz-von-Assisi-Kirche

The church was built according to a competition design by the architect Victor Luntz (1840–1903) in the Rhenish-Romanesque style; In terms of the design of the building and its position on the river, the design was based on the Gross St. Martin church in Cologne . The four- bay basilica brick building was designed to be large and massive , since the church was also to serve as a garrison church - which was later omitted - the three massive towers are covered with red roof tiles and are visible from afar. In the towers, the church reaches a total height of 73 m, the length is 76 m.

Furnishing

On the inside of the west wall (more precisely southwest wall, because the church is not exactly east ) of the side aisles are two pictures by the Italian painter Ettore Gualdini from Frosinone (1931-2010). The two works (oil on canvas, each 160 × 230 cm) were commissioned by the Trinitarian Order . The theme in the right aisle is the Annunciation , the one in the left aisle depicts the Blessed Elisabetta Canori Mora with reference to the Elisabeth chapel (see below) . In Gualdini's catalog raisonné it is described as: “Beata Isabel Canori Mora (1774–1825), moglie e madre di famiglia, terziaria trinitaria, martire dell'amore fedele nella vita matrimoniale, esponente massima della vita mistica ”(Blessed Isabel Canori Mora, 1774–1825, wife and mother, tertiary of the Trinitarian order, martyr of true love in married life, greatest Model of a mystical life).

On the left side wall of the choir there is an oil painting of a protective mantle Madonna (oil on canvas, 180 × 200 cm, 1985-2014) by the Viennese painter Lotte Berger (born 1938).

  • Interior view against high altar

  • Transept and left choir wall with the Madonna in protective cloak by Lotte Berger

  • Ettore Gualdini: Annunciazione (right aisle)

  • Ettore Gualdini: The Blessed Isabel Canori Mora (left aisle)

  • Lotte Berger -Maringer: protective coat Madonna.

organ

The Gebrüder Rieger organ

The organ was built in 1939/40 by the Rieger brothers' organ building company . The pocket shop instrument has 56  stops and a console with three manuals and a pedal . The game and stop action is electro-pneumatic. On July 7, 1940, the organ was consecrated by Cardinal Archbishop Theodor Innitzer .

I Hauptwerk C – g 3
Principal 16 ′
Principal major 8th'
Hollow flute 8th'
Gedacktpommer 8th'
Viola di gamba 8th'
octave 4 ′
Copper flute 4 ′
Octavin 2 ′
Night horn 2 ′
Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Large mixture VII
Mixture IV
Bombard 16 ′
tuba 8th'
II Positive C-g 3
Favorite Dacked 16 ′
Principal 8th'
Reed flute 8th'
Salicional 8th'
Kl. Principal 4 ′
Gemshorn 4 ′
recorder 2 ′
Schwiegel 1'
Sesquialtera II 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Scharff V
Dulcian 16 ′
Krummhorn 8th'
shelf 4 ′
tremolo
III Swell C – g 3
Harp principal 8th'
Soft flute 8th'
Beat II 8th'
Cane quintad 4 ′
Flute 4 ′
Principal 2 ′
Flautino 1'
Nassat 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
Third flute 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′
Minor fifth 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
Seventh 1 1 ⁄ 7  ′
Third cymbal III
Trumpet 8th'
Vox humana 8th'
tremolo
Pedals C – f 1
Pedestal 32 ′
Principal bass 16 ′
Sub bass 16 ′
Subtle bass 16 ′
Octave bass 8th'
Dacked bass 8th'
Choral bass 4 ′
Night horn 2 ′
Backset VI
trombone 16 ′
Dulcian 16 ′
Bass trumpet 8th'
Krummhorn 8th'
Clarine 4 ′
shelf 2 ′

Elisabeth Chapel

The Elisabeth chapel furnished in Art Nouveau style.

The Kaiserin-Elisabeth-Gedächtniskapelle, in the architecture Neo-Romanesque , in the decoration (the secessionist altar, the mosaics, the entrance grille ) of one of the important Art Nouveau monuments of Vienna, was added to the left transept of the church next to the choir . It is 13.5 meters high and around ten meters in diameter. The chapel octagon is modeled on the palatine chapel in Aachen Cathedral .

After the Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni murdered Elisabeth, the wife of Emperor Franz Joseph I, in Geneva in 1898, the year construction began on the church, the plan arose to add a richly decorated chapel to the transept of the church in her memory. The construction was financed from separate donations for the Red Cross , of which Elisabeth was the first protector. The initiative for the construction came from her successor in this function, the Archduchess Maria Theresa.

The unexpectedly high donation of 348,348 kroner made it possible to decorate the chapel with mosaics instead of frescoes and to make the wall paneling in marble instead of stucco. The mosaic designs come from Carl Ederer . In the vault of the altar apse there is a large mosaic of St. Elisabeth of Thuringia .

The chapel was completed in 1907 and solemnly consecrated on June 10, 1908. On the occasion of the consecration of the church on November 2, 1913, Emperor Franz Josef I visited the memorial chapel for the first time, where Theodor Charlemont (1859–1938), creator of the relief of Empress Elisabeth, and Franz Seifert (1866–1951), sculptor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus , gave him a visit Statue, were presented.

Church life

The church has been cared for by the Trinitarian Order since 1917 . Since then it has also been a parish church. From the 1980s it was led by Father Mario Maggi and since the 2010s it has been headed by Father Mgr Tomasz Domysiewicz OSST.

Picture gallery

  • The church from the south in front of the buildings in Kaisermühlen

  • Church with Mexikoplatz seen from the left bank of the Danube ( DC Tower )

  • The Franz-von-Assisi-Kirche as seen from the Reichsbrücke at night

  • Mosaic portrait of Elisabeth of Thuringia in the Elisabeth Chapel

literature

  • Felix Czeike: Wiener Bezirkskulturführer: II. Leopoldstadt , Jugend und Volk, Vienna 1980 ( ISBN 3-7141-6225-9 or 3-7141-0488-7). P. 28 f.
  • Felix Czeike (ed.): Franz-von-Assisi-Kirche. In:  Historisches Lexikon Wien . Volume 2, Kremayr & Scheriau, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-218-00544-2 , pp. 375–376 ( entry in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna).
  • Verena Friedrich: Vienna, Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Jubilee Church, Trinitarian and Parish Church Donaustadt for St. Francis of Assisi, Passau 2009.
  • Ludwig Hevesi : Die Jubiläumskirche, in: Eight Years of Secession (March 1897-June 1905), Criticism - Polemics - Chronicle, Vienna 1906, Reprint Klagenfurt 1984, pp. 154–157.
  • Renata Kassal-Mikula: The competition to the Kaiser Jubilee Church at the Reichsbrücke, in: Robert Waissenberger (Ed.): Studies 79/80, From the Historical Museum in Vienna, Munich 1980, pp. 213-229.
  • August Kirstein : Parish Church of St. Francis of Assisi in District II, Donaustadt, Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Jubiläumskirche, in: Wiener Bauindustrie-Zeitung 1919, pp. 57–61.
  • Inge Scheidl: Beautiful appearance and experiment, Catholic church building in Vienna at the turn of the century, Vienna 2003.
  • Liselotte Schwab: Homage to a murdered Empress: The Elisabeth Chapel in the Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Jubiläumskirche in Vienna II., Mexikoplatz . Thesis. University of Vienna, Vienna 2009, OBV . - Full text online (PDF; 126 MB) .

Web links

Commons : Franz-von-Assisi-Kirche (Vienna)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Vienna - immovable and archaeological monuments under monument protection. ( Memento from May 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) . Federal Monuments Office , as of June 26, 2015 (PDF).
  2. ↑ a b Klostergeschichten.at: Church of St. Francis of Assisi ( Memento of the original from November 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; Retrieved Nov. 8, 2015. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.klostergeschichten.at
  3. ↑ a b Ziel2wien.at: Franz von Assisi Church on Mexikoplatz ; Retrieved Nov. 8, 2015.
  4. ^ Franz-von-Assisi-Kirche in the Vienna History Wiki of the City of Vienna
  5. ^ A b Inauguration of the Kaiser Jubilee Church in the Danube City. In:  Neue Freie Presse , afternoon paper, no. 17671/1913, November 3, 1913, p. 8, top right. (Online at ANNO ).Template: ANNO / Maintenance / nfp
  6. ↑ Liselotte Schwab: The Elisabeth Chapel in the Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Jubiläumskirche in Vienna II., Mexikoplatz ; Dissertation, Vienna 2008.
  7. ↑ Christine Klusacek, Kurt tuner: Leopoldstadt ; Kurt Mohl Publishing House, Vienna 1978.
  8. ↑ [1] , accessed on November 6, 2015.
  9. ↑ Ettore Gualdini [2] website accessed on 6 November.
  10. ↑ Information on the organ ( Memento of the original from December 3, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 2.2 MB) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.mdw.ac.at
  11. ^ Liselotte Schwab: Homage to a murdered empress: The Elisabeth Chapel in the Kaiser-Franz-Josef-Jubiläumskirche in Vienna II., Mexikoplatz , page 102 ; Diplomica Verlag, Hamburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8366-9015-7 .
  12. ↑ target2wien.at - Mario Maggi, Catholic priest of the parish Mexikoplatz
  13. ^ Archdiocese of Vienna: Parish Donaustadt. Retrieved February 22, 2020 (German).

Coordinates: 48 ° 13 ′ 28.3 ″  N , 16 ° 24 ′ 19.7 ″  E