St. Jakobus Cathedral (Görlitz)

St. James Cathedral

St. James from the south-south-west

The St. Jakobus Cathedral in Görlitz is the episcopal church of the Roman Catholic diocese of Görlitz .

history

inner space

Today's cathedral was built between 1898-1900 by the architect Joseph Ebers built and on October 6, 1900 consecrated . The original plan was to build the new church as a branch church of the parish of the Holy Cross. The Breslau prince-bishop Adolf Cardinal Bertram (at that time Görlitz belonged to the Archdiocese of Breslau ) raised the new church to the parish church of the new parish of St. James in 1918 .

In March 1947, the then German chapter vicar Ferdinand Piontek had to leave the episcopal city of Breslau as a result of the Second World War . He continued his work as Vicar Chapter in Wroclaw in Görlitz. Görlitz thus became the exile seat of the Wroclaw Metropolitan Chapter and the Wroclaw Ordinariate and the parish church of St. Jakobus was also the episcopal church for the diocesan area of Görlitz-Cottbus. This was raised to the Apostolic Administration in 1972 . The Church of St. James received the title of Procathedral . The previous auxiliary bishop Bernhard Huhn became the apostolic administrator . Since the reorganization of East German dioceses in the early 1990s, the Görlitz diocese was founded in 1994 and the St. Jakobus Church was elevated to the status of the Görlitz diocese cathedral. The St. James' Cathedral has belonged to the parish of St. Wenceslas Görlitz since 2012 .

At the end of November 2019 it was announced that the St. James Cathedral will be closed to the public for around two years from February. The diocese of Görlitz told the press that this is being done to renovate the interior and to remove war damage. The estimated costs are estimated at up to 3.7 million euros.

architecture

The neo - Gothic three - aisled hall church in brick construction with the 68 meter high tower stands on a hill and is therefore visible from afar. Inside there are fragments of building-time paintings and glaze tiles used ornamentally. In the last days of the Second World War , the church was badly damaged by artillery fire, after which it was restored with a simplified spire and without the dwelling houses . In 2014 the four small side towers, the roof structures and the frieze made of yellow and red roof tiles were reconstructed.

Furnishing

organ

Organ of St. James' Cathedral

The Eule company built a three-manual organ with 47 stops with mechanical tone and electrical stop action between 1988 and 1989 . The disposition is as follows:

I Rückpositiv C – g ³
1.	Wooden dacked	8th'
2.	Quintadena	8th'
3.	Praestant	4 ′
4th	Reed flute	4 ′
5.	octave	2 ′
6th	Larigot	1 ¹ ⁄ ₃  ′
7th	Sesquialter II
8th.	Zimbel III	² ⁄ ₃ ′
9.	Cromorne	8th'
	Tremulant

II Hauptwerk C – g ³
10.	Pommer	16 ′
11.	Principal	8th'
12.	Reed flute	8th'
13.	Funnel viol	8th'
14th	octave	4 ′
15th	Pointed flute	4 ′
16.	Fifth	2 ² ⁄ ₃  ′
17th	octave	2 ′
18th	recorder	2 ′
19th	Cornett III-V
20th	Mixture IV	1 ¹ ⁄ ₃  ′
21st	Trumpet	8th'
	Tremulant

III Swell C – g ³
22nd	Silent	16 ′
23.	Metal flute	8th'
24.	Coupling flute	8th'
25th	Salicional	8th'
26th	Beat	8th'
27.	Principal	4 ′
28.	Wooden flute	4 ′
29	viola	4 ′
30th	Nasat	2 ² ⁄ ₃  ′
31.	Pointed octave	2 ′
32.	third	1 ³ ⁄ ₅  ′
33.	Sifflet	1'
34.	Sharp IV	1'
35.	bassoon	16 ′
36.	Trumpet harm.	8th'
37.	Clairon	4 ′
	Tremulant

Pedal C – f ¹
38.	Principal bass	16 ′
39.	Sub-bass	16 ′
40.	Fifth bass	10 ² ⁄ ₃  ′
41.	Octave bass	8th'
42.	Bass flute	8th'
43.	Chorale bass	4 ′
44.	Dolkan	2 ′
45.	Mixture IV	4 ′
46.	trombone	16 ′
47.	Trumpet	8th'
	Tremulant

Coupling : 5 normal coupling.
Play aids : setter system , roller .

View into the bell chamber

Bells

In the year the church was consecrated, the Otto bell foundry from Hemelingen / Bremen delivered four bronze bells to the newly built St. Jakobus Church. The bell had the disposition: d ′ - f ′ - g ′. Although the bells were removed and taken away during the First World War, they came back to Görlitz and hung in the tower during the Second World War. The two larger bells were melted down during World War II. Only the small g-bell remained of the church and rang alone by the year 1963. Today there is a peal of church from four bells with the name of St. James , St. Benedict , St. Mary and St. Boniface . After fatigue cracks were discovered in the steel yokes, which were rebuilt after the war destruction in 1963, three of the four bells had to be temporarily shut down. After the renovation, the bells have been in service again since July 2012.

In 2013 the peal was supplemented by two bells.

No.	Surname	Casting year	Foundry, casting location	Ø (mm)	Weight (kg)	Nominal
1.	St. James	1963	Schilling (Apolda)		2,750	cis ¹
2.	St. Benedict	1963	Schilling (Apolda)		1,600	e ¹
3.	St. Mary	1963	Schilling (Apolda)		1,120	f ¹
4th	St. Boniface	1900	Otto / Bremen-Hemelingen		806	g ¹
5.	St. Hedwig	2013	Bell foundry Lauchhammer	1001	582	g sharp ¹
6th	Hildegard Burjan	2013	Bell foundry Lauchhammer	885	399	as ¹

Individual evidence

↑ New parish founded. Catholic parish of St. Wenceslas Görlitz, accessed on March 3, 2019 .
↑ Görlitz Cathedral will be closed for two years , deutschlandfunkkultur.de Kulturnachrichten from November 28, 2019, accessed November 28, 2019
↑ Article in the Sächsische Zeitung: The Jakobuskirche is dressing up , accessed on April 13, 2020
^ Gerhard Reinhold: Otto bells. Family and company history of the Otto bell foundry dynasty . Self-published, Essen 2019, ISBN 978-3-00-063109-2 , p. 588, in particular pages 270, 271, 444, 511 .
↑ Gerhard Reinhold: Church bells - Christian world cultural heritage, illustrated using the example of the bell founder Otto, Hemelingen / Bremen . Nijmegen / NL 2019, p. 556, especially pp. 243–245, 476 , urn : nbn: nl: ui: 22-2066 / 204770 (dissertation at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen).
↑ Article of the "Day of the Lord" Again with a loud bell , accessed on August 28, 2012
↑ Information on the weight and sound of the bells
↑ Information on the new bells