Oldenstadt monastery church

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Exterior view of the church with the nave on the right
South view of the part of the building that is now used as a parish church

The monastery church of St. John the Baptist is the church of the former Oldenstadt monastery. Oldenstadt forms the nucleus of the Hanseatic city of Uelzen and is now part of the urban area.

The church is the remainder of a Benedictine monastery , which was built in the 12th century on the site of a former canonical monastery from the 10th century. The canonical foundation was founded in 966 or 973 by Bishop Bruno I of Verden on the Ullishusen estate, church patron saints St. Mary and John the Baptist . The monastery was conveniently located on the long-distance route between Goslar / Braunschweig and Lüneburg . In addition, the crossing over the Wipperau was in the immediate vicinity.

Today's church

The current church building was probably built between 1150 and 1200. It was built from field stones in the Romanesque round arch style and served as a monastery church for the Benedictine monks, who were settled from Corvey in Oldenstadt in 1133/37 . The former crossing and the choir of the monks represent a large part of today's parish church. Behind, in the west, is the nave , the former parish room of the church. It originally had two narrow aisles and ended with a two-tower westwork , of which only the outlines of the foundations can be seen today. The nave is now owned by the Uelzen district and is used for exhibition purposes and concerts. In the dividing wall between the two parts of the building, the remains of a Gothic rood screen can still be seen on the nave side , a demarcation between the parish and the monks' part of the church.

After the abolition of the monastery in the course of the Reformation under Abbot Heyno Gottschalk (1529/31), only the eastern part of the church was used as a place of worship; In 1728 it was extended seven meters to the east. After the Reformation, the church and the monastery belonged to the Duke of Braunschweig-Lüneburg ; The weather vane on the roof turret (1621), which bears the ducal coat of arms, reminds of this time . There are three bells hanging in the ridge today: a Gothic one from the monastery period (14th / 15th century) and two bells from the 20th century (1930 and 1957).

The church is used for church services. Visits and guided tours in the church are possible.

The three previous buildings

View of the monastery and office around 1654 as an engraving by Merian

The Romanesque field stone basilica, which was about 47 meters long, 25 meters wide and had a clear width of 12 meters, was the fourth building at this point. By excavations three previous buildings were identified:

  • a single-nave wooden structure from around or before 800
  • a successor building with the same floor plan and made of the same material that was destroyed by fire
  • a three-aisled field stone basilica from the Ottonian period. This building was probably built as the church of the Oldenstadt canonical monastery, which had been attested in writing since 973/74 and was then probably demolished after this monastery was abolished (before 1133/37).

The church history of Oldenstadt goes back to the time of Christianization under Charlemagne . The graves that were found in the two wooden churches make Oldenstadt the oldest Christian burial site in what is now northeastern Lower Saxony. The dedication of the church to John the Baptist (mentioned since 1006, here still together with the patroness Maria ) probably reminds of the importance as a regional baptistery.

The furnishings of the church

Interior view with the new pulpit pictures by Hermann Buss

In today's church, little reminds of the monastery time. The furnishings essentially originate from the last century and a half and underline the classicistic character that the church interior bears today.

The pulpit altar (before 1770) is at the center of today's church . Above the sound cover he shows a symbol for the triune God with his eye in a triangle. Since 2006 there have been paintings by the artist Hermann Buß / Norden on the pulpit cage . In addition to motifs from the surrounding area (grave monument in front of the church with a butterfly as a sign of life, Kl.-Liederner Bach), these images also show people who are on the move, who find themselves between despair and hope, between indifference and affection.

The simple church is also shaped by other images of life and faith. In addition to the classical christening angel ( Friedrich Pfannschmidt / Berlin, 1901), the stained glass windows should also be mentioned here:

  • The three late romantic glass windows behind the pulpit altar ( Glasmalereianstalt Ferdinand Müller / Quedlinburg, 1909) illustrate in bright colors the story of the birth of Jesus from the Annunciation to Mary to the Adoration of the Kings.
  • The three windows on the north side of the nave ( Alois Plum / Mainz, 1998) recall the life story of Johannes d. T., the namesake of the church.
  • The window on the south side (Renate Strasser / Bielefeld, 1960) shows Jesus at the Sermon on the Mount . People of all ages and walks of life are his audience.
  • The window in the south transept, also from the post-war period, is reminiscent of Jesus' last supper in an abstract formal language .

To this day, the Oldenstadt Church is a place where people think about their lives in church services and want to find peace and orientation. The church services are musically accompanied by the organ located in the north transept gallery. The original, no longer existing, instrument with its baroque-classicistic design comes from the organ builder Ernst Röver / Hausneindorf (1909). In 1971 the organ was fundamentally rearranged and a Rückpositiv was added (Ludwig Hoffmann / Betheln ).

Ev.-luth. Parish of Oldenstadt

The former monastery church is today the center of the ev.-luth. Parish of Oldenstadt in the parish of Uelzen of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover . In addition to Oldenstadt and the chapel town of Groß Liedern (with the Gothic Georgskapelle Groß Liedern ), the parish includes Klein Liedern, Mehre, Pieperhöfen and Tatern. The parish hall on Klosterstrasse was designed around 1770 by the then Churhannovese master builder Otto Heinrich von Bonn . There has been a Bible garden at the parish hall since 2017 .

literature

  • Axel Freiherr von Campenhausen: Oldenstadt Benedictine Abbey. Comments on dealing with historical sacred buildings . In: Home calendar for the city and district of Uelzen 1988, pp. 30–34
  • Cord-Hinrich Dageförde: On the building history of the Romanesque field stone basilica and monastery church of St. Johannis the Baptist in Uelzen-Oldenstadt based on archive material and literature . Uelzen 1995
  • Petra Mößlein: Monasterium quoddam nomine Ullishusun. The history of the former monastery church in Oldenstadt / Uelzen from its Carolingian beginnings to the Reformation (sources and representations on the history of the city and district of Uelzen, vol. 5), Uelzen 2006
  • Gerhard Osten: The Benedictine monastery Oldenstadt . In: Uelzener Contributions, Issue 3 (Festschrift 700 Years of Urban Law in Uelzen), Uelzen 1970, pp. 31-102
  • Gerhard Osten: Art. Oldenstadt . In: Germania Benedictina, Vol. 6: Norddeutschland, Munich, pp. 389-400
  • Gunther Schendel: Hermann Buß - the artist of the new Oldenstadt pulpit basket pictures . In: The Heidewanderer. Local supplement of the Allgemeine Zeitung, Uelzen, 2007, pp. 69–72 (May 5, 2007).
  • Gunther Schendel: Church center in transition. The Oldenstadt pulpit altar in four centuries . In: The Heidewanderer. Local supplement of the Allgemeine Zeitung Uelzen, 86th year, No. 15 and 16, 10. u. April 17, 2010, p. 57 ff.
  • Gunther Schendel: Above the roofs of Oldenstadt. The historic weather vane of the Oldenstadt Church . In: The Heidewanderer. Local supplement of Allgemeine Zeitung Uelzen, Volume 86, No. 37, September 11, 2010, pp. 145–147.
  • Gunther Schendel: A Prussian district administrator as a donor. The Gustav Albrechts foundations in Oldenstadt . In: Heimatkalender 2011 for the city and district of Uelzen, Uelzen 2010, pp. 77–84.
  • Thomas Vogtherr: Uelzen. History of a city in the Middle Ages . Uelzen 1997, pp. 16-25.
  • Ernst Andreas Friedrich : The former monastery of Oldenstadt , pp. 70–72, in: If stones could talk . Volume IV, Landbuch-Verlag, Hannover 1998, ISBN 3-7842-0558-5

Web links

Commons : Klosterkirche Oldenstadt  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 52 ° 58 ′ 19.1 ″  N , 10 ° 35 ′ 24.3 ″  E