St. Martin Church (Busskirch)

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The Church of St. Martin
View from the wooden bridge Rapperswil – Hurden over the Obersee to the peninsula of Busskirch
Gothic choir and church tower after the renovation in 1482/83
Sacristy and location of the ossuary removed in 1850
Porch from 1676

The Church of St. Martin was until 1945 a Roman Catholic parish church in Kirchdorf Busskirch in Jona , a district of the Swiss municipality Rapperswil-Jona in the canton of St. Gallen .

location

The church stands on a peninsula jutting out into the upper Lake Zurich on the northern shore of the lake, in the mouth of the Jona , a river in the Swiss cantons of Zurich and St. Gallen , after which the district of Rapperswil-Jona is named. The early medieval parish church of St. Martin and its cemetery were built on the remains of a Roman estate from the second half of the 1st century AD, which is assigned to the Roman Vicus Centum Prata ( Kempraten ).

History of the parish of Busskirch

The Busskirch parish is one of the oldest on Lake Zurich and played an important role until it was abolished in 1945. From 840 to 1838 it was subordinate to the Pfäfers monastery, which had the collature , tithe rights and extensive property. The church of Busskirch in the Churrätischen Reichsurbar is mentioned for the first time as " fossonas ecclesiam " owned by the Benedictine abbey Pfäfers. " Fussinchirichun " (Busskirch) and " Vurmirrispah " (Wurmsbach) are mentioned in an award document dated August 6, 854 stored in the St. Gallen Abbey Archives .

In a document dated April 16, 1209, issued in the Grossmünster in Zurich, Lütold IV. Von Regensberg and his son confirm the transfer of an estate to the brothers of St. Maria and document the agreement between the Rüti provost and the priest of Busskirch as a Representatives of the Pfäfers monastery: The new possessions of the monastery were subject to a tenancy fee after Busskirch, as was the St. Nikolaus chapel, located on today's Chlaushöhe in Rüti , under Busskirch. With the consent of the Abbot von Pfäfers, the latter ceded the St. Nicholas Chapel and the income from its widum property and the tithe to the Convent of Rüti, and the Bishop of Constance waived his rights.

Busskirch was a large parish to which the residents of Rapperswil and today's Jona as well as other churches belonged. In 1253 Count Rudolf III. Rapperswil his patronage to the monastery Pfäfers off to the town church of Rapperswil from Sprengel replace the parish Busskirch. In 1369 the church of the Mariazell-Wurmsbach monastery was added to the parish church of Busskirch. After the dissolution of the Pfäfers monastery, Busskirch became an independent parish in 1838, integrated into the parish of Jona in 1945, and since 2008, after the parish merger of Jona and Rapperswil, Busskirch has belonged to the Catholic parish of Rapperswil-Jona.

Building history

The first of the five predecessor churches was built on the remains of Roman walls that came to light during the interior renovation in 1975. As early as 1927, the remains of a Roman hypocaust were found that could be assigned to a villa rustica from the second half of the 1st century AD, which was expanded to the east with additional rooms. The bright colors in the Pompeian style were remarkable . Presumably because the lake level had risen permanently after the Gallo-Roman inhabitants of the Vicus Turicum no longer freed the lake drain from the sediment of the Sihl , the ground in part of the building was raised in the course of the 3rd century. Roman walls of the same building complex were also found north of the church, and in 1950 the remains of a Roman mortar floor and three steps of a stone staircase at the cemetery entrance came to light - presumably the access to the hypocaust below ground level, as well as numerous fragments of heating pipes that were found. About 200 meters northwest of today's church, cremation graves were accidentally destroyed during the construction of residential houses in 1962 , which probably belonged to a Roman burial ground on the Roman road between Kempraten and Busskirch.

Presumably in the 7th century the first small hall church dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours was built on the Roman foundations . This first verifiable church building was built on the Roman foundations of a room measuring 9 × 6 meters. Possibly this was the early church for Christianization in the Linth area , in connection with the missionary activity of St. Columban of Luxeuil and Gallus . According to tradition, on his way from Turicum to Tuggen, Gallus threw an Alemannic idol in the reed with the characteristic field name " im Götz " east of the church.

The similarly oriented successor building, a hall church measuring 11 × 6 meters, presumably dates from the Carolingian era and was no longer built on the Roman foundations - it is probably the church that is mentioned in the Imperial Surbar in 842/843. After a fire, a Romanesque church was built on massive foundations around 1100 . A semicircular apse connected to the east of the rectangular hall measuring 9 × 16 meters . This church building was torn down to its foundation walls around 1300 and the third new building was built with artfully layered masonry - the late Romanesque nave remained unchanged until 1853. This formed the core building for the subsequent renovations in 1482/83 with the addition of a polygonal Gothic choir , the church tower and a gable roof , which essentially gave the church its present appearance.

During the siege of Rapperswil (1656) , the Zurich troops looted and destroyed the late Gothic furnishings of the walled church. The ossuary was demolished in 1850. The tower top and the church porch were designed in a classicist style in 1676 . Extensive renovation work was carried out in 1905 and 1975.

Interior

Interior view from the gallery

In 1483 the pews and the door to the sacristy were installed and two side altars were erected. The Gothic windows and the sign are from 1671. The choir has late Gothic structural elements with buttresses and tracery windows , as does the tower up to the bell storey. High arched windows illuminated the interior; two of the originally Romanesque windows were uncovered during the 1975 restoration. The choir vault is adorned with four medallions from the middle of the 17th century with portraits of the evangelists, probably created after the church was desecrated by the Zurich troops in 1656. The frescoes exposed in 1975 are freso buono and the grid pattern on the vault is al secco on the dry plaster been applied. Hidden under the plaster were also the tabernacle in the north wall and the sealed with an iron door niche in the south wall. The fresco on the choir wall gives the impression of a painted hall space, which forms the framework for the architecture in the choir with the cross hung on the choir arch. The crucifix stands in the center of two kneeling angels, who are painted floating on clouds in the church. The late Gothic crucifix above the north entrance dates from the first half of the 16th century, with a very slender body at 82 cm high. The back wall of the nave is adorned with the “ Hell's Jaws ”: the work from the mid-16th century is a fragment of a portrait of the Last Judgment on the choir arch.

  • Choir area with the frescoes exposed in 1975

  • Choir vault with frescoes, mid-17th century

  • Side altar "St. Joseph's passing "

  • High altar, left "Sacrifice of Melchizedech", right "Sacrifice of Isaac"

  • Side altar "Saint Martin"

  • "Consummation of the Redeemed in the Glory of Christ" (1975)

  • Gallery and entrance area with two of the four frescoes, "Way of the Cross" left and right

  • “ Hell's throat ”, fragment “Last Judgment”, mid-16th century.

In 1848 the nave was redesigned in a Biedermeier- classicist style and a window yoke was added to the west. Johann Anton Rizzi painted the two northern ceiling paintings in the same year. They form a unit with the choir arch: the front shows, in the Renaissance style, the Holy Family with Elisabeth and John in a triangular composition , the main field shows the Lord's Supper . The neo-Gothic high altar and the two side altars date from 1905. As an indication of the Eucharistic sacrifice, the main altar shows the sacrifice of Melchizedech in the left field and the sacrifice of Isaac on the right . Saint Martin is shown in the right turret with the goose at his feet, on the left Karl Borromeo . The altarpieces in the side altars “Sankt Martin” and “St. Joseph's death ”come from the old altars. In 1936, Marx Stieg completed the interior with a late Classicist font with a ribbed sandstone bowl over a round shaft.

The third ceiling painting " Completion of the Redeemed in the Glory of Christ " was created in Baroque style by Jost Blöchlinger on the occasion of the reopening after the complete renovation in 1975. The St. Martin Church was given 13 rural-Baroque station paintings from the second half of the 18th century for this occasion and a statue of Our Lady with child from the 17th century, as well as the internal glazing of the windows with slugs . Parts of the church organ come from Andwil . The first church bells were probably stolen by the Zurich troops in 1656. With the overall renovation, donors made it possible to purchase two new bells and a carillon with Te Deum and Salve Regina motifs.

The church treasure is comparatively modest and includes a disc monstrance from 1742, the late Gothic crucifix, a lecture cross from the first half of the 16th century, a holiday chalice from 1700, ciborias , oil vessels, statuettes and church flags. The valuable pieces are exhibits in the Rapperswil-Jona City Museum and the Zurich State Museum .

literature

  • Bernhard Anderes: The Art Monuments of the Canton of St. Gallen , Volume IV, The Lake District. Birkhäuser Verlag , Basel 1966.
  • Peter Röllin: Rapperswil-Jona cultural building set: 36 museums without a roof . Rapperswil-Jona 2005, ISBN 3-033-00478-4 .

Web links

Commons : St. Martin Busskirch  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bernard Andenmatten and Brigitte Degler-Spengler (Red.): The Premonstratensians in Switzerland . In: Helvetia Sacra IV / 3, Basel 2002. ISBN 978-3-7965-1218-6 .
  2. ^ City administration Rapperswil-Jona: Kulturstätten , accessed on April 19, 2013

Coordinates: 47 ° 13 '1.2 "  N , 8 ° 50' 0.7"  E ; CH1903:  seven hundred and five thousand six hundred fifty-seven  /  230503