Rochester Cathedral
The Cathedral of Rochester , officially Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary , the bishop's church of the Anglican Diocese of Rochester in Rochester , Kent . Founded in 604, it is the second oldest cathedral in England after Canterbury Cathedral . Today's building is, in spite of later modifications, largely Norman .
History, architecture and furnishings
Founder of the cathedral - with the original patronage of St. Andrew - and first bishop was Justus , one of the missionaries sent to England by Pope Gregory I at the request of Augustine of Canterbury in 601. The property was donated by King Ethelbert of Kent .
After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, the first Norman bishop Gundulf , a Benedictine from the Abbey of Le Bec , initiated the construction of a Benedictine monastery near the cathedral and the rebuilding of the cathedral itself from 1083. The consecration took place in 1130 in the presence of King Henry I of this building the nave and the west facade as well as parts of the crypt are preserved.
In 1137 a fire damaged the wooden ceiling of the nave and destroyed the choir . Restoration work began in 1180 with the construction of the Gothic choir, which is larger than the nave. The work suffered setbacks in the First and Second Barons' Wars .
The veneration of Williams of Perth , who, according to local tradition, was slain by his foster son as a pilgrim to Jerusalem near Rochester in 1201 and canonized Pope Alexander IV in 1256 , brought the cathedral privileges of indulgence and large sacrifices of money from pilgrims who repaired the war damage and continued the Gothic building project made possible. The new choir was consecrated in 1227, and the north and south transepts were built in the following decades. Bishop Hamo Hythe had it vaulted and the mighty crossing tower built. A hundred years later, today's upper facade of the nave and the western facade window were built.
With the English Reformation , the Benedictine monastery of St. Andrew was dissolved. The cathedral received a new, Protestant cathedral chapter and its current patronage.
The English Civil War in 1642 resulted in new damage and restoration work. Thorough restoration work took place in 1825 and 1872. An extensive cycle of historicist picture windows was created around the turn of the 20th century. Most of the sculptural jewelry also dates from this period. In 1904 the crossing tower was renewed.
To mark the 1,400th anniversary of the cathedral's founding in 2004, the Russian artist Sergej Fjodorow (* 1969) created a large wall fresco in an icon-like style depicting the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan and the baptism of Ethelbert of Kent by Augustine of Canterbury in 597.
Web links
- Network presence of the Cathedral (English)
Individual evidence
Coordinates: 51 ° 23 ′ 20.1 ″ N , 0 ° 30 ′ 12.1 ″ E