Holmens Kirke

Holmens Kirke, in the foreground the sacristy

The Holmens Kirke is an Evangelical Lutheran church in Copenhagen near the Parliament on the Holmens Canal .

history

The Holmens Kirke was originally in 1562 as an anchor forge under King Christian III. military dock facilities have been built on Bremerholm . So that the sight of the elongated, flat workshop building did not disturb the view from the royal castle , it was "hidden" behind a tower in the Italian Renaissance style .

Christian IV settled members of the Royal Navy on the Holm , for whom a separate church was needed. After 1617 a new forge was built, the existing workshop building was converted to a church, and on September 5, 1619 consecrated . The original floor plan was retained. The Italian tower served as a bell tower. Since the church was originally a secular building, it is not eaten . Your entrance portal was on the south-eastern narrow side. Engelbret Melstede created the stalls and altar. It is not known where the altar was in this first church. The small building soon became too cramped for the growing community.

The west gable of the Holmens Kirke directly on the Holmens Canal was formed in 1641 from the tower built in 1562.

In 1641 the church was expanded to its present-day cruciform floor plan. Master builder Leonhard Blasius added the somewhat shorter cross arms, integrated the tower in the south-west of the church as a west gable and raised the old building to the height of the tower. The church stands on a foundation of granite stones. The new parts of the building are made of yellow bricks , which are slightly smaller than the tower. The new gables, which were modeled on the Renaissance tower, are much simpler than this. They were plastered. The red and yellow brickwork is only painted on to simulate the same material as the tower. This painting was renewed in 1763. The portal of the old church was moved to the east gable. A ridge turret for the bells was built over the crossing.

The burial chapel on the banks of the Holmen Canal

Towards the end of the 17th century, several small burial chapels were added to the church, including the one for Niels Juel in 1697 . 1705-08 the large chapel was added, which stretches along the canal bank and in which u. a. Christian Frederik Hansen is buried. Niels Juel was also reburied there. His burial chapel was replaced by a sacristy.

In 1776 the ceiling was decorated with stucco . Several major repairs and redesigns took place in the first half of the 19th century.

Today the church serves the residents of the districts of Bremerholmen (Gammelholmen) and Slotsholmen as a parish church and a seaman's church. In 1967 Queen Margaret II married here .

inventory

The church survived the fires of the town and castle in 1728 and 1794, the siege from 1658 to 1660 and the bombardment in 1807 largely unscathed, which is why its inventory from the 17th century has been preserved.

The altar created for the church in 1614 was replaced in 1661. The church in Grenaa got the old altar . The altar, which is still in the church today, was made by organist and carver Abel Schrøder (1606–1676) from Næstved, who also created the pulpit and the figures on the church's choir grille. The latter are now in the organ gallery. An inscription was added on the back in 1702, on which the history of the church is reported.

Baptismal font

The church has three baptismal fonts: The wrought-iron baptismal font from 1641, the work of master blacksmith Hans Ulriksen Svitzer, who worked at the Holmer Schmiede, bears the monogram of Christian IV. It was originally surrounded by a grid near the eastern main portal. When the stalls were enlarged, they were moved to the north edge of the east transept at the end of the 17th century. In 1756 a new baptistery was created in the southwest corner, for which the English-born sculptor Carl Frederik Stanley made a classical baptismal font. The wrought iron baptismal font was removed from the church and moved to the National Museum in 1824. The baptistery was renewed in 1872. For this, Ludvig Fenger created a new baptismal font made of sandstone and marble, which is now in the large chapel. Stanley's basin found a new place first in the Hvidovre Church and then in the Nikolaikirche in Copenhagen. Since 1921 the wrought iron baptismal font has been back in the church in the center of the crossing. When Nikolaikirche was secularized in 1957, Stanley's white marble basin also returned to its original location in Holmens Kirke.