Jesuit Church (Molsheim)

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Exterior view
Ground level view of the nave
View of the high altar

The Church of St. George and the Holy Trinity (Église Sainte-Trinité et-Saint-Georges) is the parish church of the city of Molsheim in the Bas-Rhin department , France , and the most important church building from the 17th century in the Rhine Valley .

history

The church is generally referred to as the Jesuit Church (Église des Jésuites) due to its centuries-long function . It was built by Christoph Wamser from 1615 to 1617 and consecrated on August 26, 1618. Wamser's building is considered to be one of the most representative examples of post-Gothic architecture . The church has been listed as a Monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture since 1939 .

Molsheim's Jesuit College was founded in 1580 and dissolved in 1765. From 1618 to 1704 it served as the main Catholic university of Alsace and was more important than the Lutheran University of Strasbourg . The construction of the church was financed in 1614 by the Strasbourg bishop Archduke Leopold V of Austria-Tyrol , who on Leopoldi Day . (November 15) donated a significant sum of money. Although a chapel is dedicated to Ignatius of Loyola , the church was dedicated to the Holy Trinity from the beginning . The dedication to St. George was added after the handover of the church to the city (1791). The previous Georgskirche and original parish church of Molsheim was completely demolished between 1790 and 1806, it stood on today's market square (Place du Marché) .

The dimensions of the building are considerable, especially in relation to the modest size of the city: overall external length including bell tower and sacristy 82.5 m; Total inner length 70 m long; Width of the nave 25 m. The bell tower is 45 m high, the interior vault height is 20 m, the choir has a floor area of ​​214.5 m² (19.5 mx 11 m).

Furnishing

The sights of the richly decorated building include the baroque Ignatius Chapel (1621–1630) in the north cross arm and the Rococo style chapel (1748) in the south cross arm.

The late Gothic Christ on the Cross (1480) is 4.5 m high and 2.5 m wide and comes from the town's former Charterhouse .

Silbermann organ

View of the organ

A special feature of Johann Andreas Silbermann's organ from 1781 was the Echowerk, the predecessor of the later romantic “Récit”. Only minor repairs were made to the instrument in the 19th century. It was not until 1887 that the organ builder Franz Xaver Kriess made significant changes to the original substance of the instrument. The range of the keyboard was expanded, the echo mechanism was converted into a swell mechanism and the organ was tuned half a tone higher. Further changes to the disposition followed by Kriess in 1910 and 1941. Between 1969 and 1971 the organ was extensively restored by the organ builder Alfred Kern, whereby the changes made in the meantime were also reversed. The instrument has 22 registers , which are divided into two manuals and pedal . The disposition is as follows:

I Grand Orgue C – d 3
01. Bourdon 16 ′
02. Montre 08th'
03. Bourdon 08th'
04th Prestant 04 ′
05. Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
06th Duplicate 02 ′
07th Tierce 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′
08th. Sifflet B / D 01'
09. Cornet V
10. Fittings III
11. Cymbals II
12. Trumpet B / D0 08th'
Tremblant gone
II echo C – d 3
13. Bourdon B / D 08th'
14th Flûte B / D 04 ′
15th Nasard B / D 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
16. Double B / D0 02 ′
17th Tierce D 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′
18th Flageolet D 01'
19th Bassoon-bass B. 08th'
Pedale C – c 1
20th Soubasse 16 ′
21st Octavebasse 08th'
22nd Trumpets 08th'

literature

  • Médard Barth: The parish church of St. Georg von Molsheim, former Jesuit church . Societe d'Edition de la Basse-Alsace, Strasbourg 1963.

Web links

Commons : Jesuitenkirche (Molsheim)  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ville de Molsheim: Nos monuments (French)
  2. ↑ a b c "Sensuous worship: Jesuits and the art of the early Catholic Reformation in Germany" (English)
  3. ↑ Ancienne église des Jésuites, ou église catholique Saint-Georges , database of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
  4. ↑ a b c "Molsheim's parish church formerly church of the Jesuits" (English)
  5. ↑ église paroissiale Saint-Georges , database of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
  6. ↑ Oswald, Grégory (2015): “L'église des Jésuites”, Ville de Molsheim, p. 2
  7. ↑ The numbers of 61.5 m long and 21.5 m wide (first [?] Barth 1964; repeated by Smith 2002; Oswald 2015, p. 5), which have been in circulation for a long time, are wrong. The floor plan on a scale of 2 cm = 10 m (Oswald 2015, p. 2) realistically results in larger dimensions.
  8. ↑ Information on the Silbermann organ ( memento of October 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (French), accessed on December 19, 2016.

Coordinates: 48 ° 32 ′ 25 "  N , 7 ° 29 ′ 45"  E