St. Annen Monastery Church (Kamenz)
The monastery church of St. Annen was the church of the Kamenz Franciscan convent . After the abolition of the monastery, it was used for the evangelical worship of the Sorbian inhabitants.
Since August 2011, the room has been used for church purposes, concerts and events as well as the presentation of sacred works of art from the Kamenz churches under the name of St. Annen's Monastery Church and Sacral Museum. A reserved, new extension is used by the tourist information. The related "exemplary cooperation between parish and municipality", the "striking combination of old and new architectural language" as well as the "rich, at the same time noble, restrained presentation of several winged altars and valuable pieces of equipment" were awarded the 1st prize of the Foundation for the Preservation of Church Monuments in 2014 Germany recognized.
With the late Gothic winged altars of the Annenkirche and of St. Marien and St. Just , Kamenz and the nearby St. Marienstern monastery form a double station on the Via Sacra .
history
After the Kamenz council gave up its long-lasting resistance to the intention of the Bohemian King Vladislav II to settle Franciscans from the strict observance here , the foundation stone for the construction of the monastery was laid on May 20, 1493 by Upper Lusatian governor Sigismund von Wartenberg . This made the Kamenz convent the last Franciscan foundation in the countries of the Bohemian crown . At the instigation of the bailiff, an indulgence was set up that was “valid” for the visitors for 1,200 days. The first Franciscans came from the Bechin monastery in South Bohemia .
The council had only assigned the friars a building site outside the city walls on the northern edge of the city, so that the monastery itself had to take care of the defense, fortification and integration of its buildings into the wall ring. This had curious consequences: after the convent had erected an outer wall ring surrounding the monastery buildings, in 1518 it succeeded in acquiring a house on the inner wall, in the place of which the monastery gate was built - the monastery was finally given protected access to the city. In 1521 the legal situation on the city walls was finally clarified with the council.
In 1512 the convent received relics of St. Anne from Prague , to whose patronage the church was placed. In 1518 King Ludwig II increased the privileges of the monastery.
The construction phases and the authorship are difficult to document. A misalignment and a kink between the choir and nave suggest that these were not carried out at the same time. The year 1512 on the triumphal arch indicates the completion of the nave in that year. After analyzing stonemasons' marks , Cornelius Gurlitt names a wolf (f) Rüdinger as the master builder , who also worked in many other places in Upper Lusatia and later in Schneeberg ; Georg Dehio, on the other hand, calls a Wollff Hrabisch .
The originally negative attitude of the council contrasted with the close ties of the guilds and many bourgeois families with the order, which was expressed in the foundation of numerous altars . The success of the Franciscans appears all the more evident when one considers the short period of existence of the monastery.
In 1527 the preacher Johannes Ludwig gave the first Protestant sermon in Kamenz, in 1536 the council finally ordered the introduction of the Reformation . The Franciscan monastery remained the bastion of Catholicism in the city for a while . The clergyman Matthes Rudolph , who later became legendary as a “clever monk”, even managed to win over an increasing number of people back to the “old doctrine”, which the council complained about.
After the last Franciscan had left the monastery in 1564, the administrator of the Meißen diocese in Upper and Lower Lusatia, Johann Leisentrit , handed over the church and convent building to the city - against the express will of the Bechin mother monastery. The conditions linked to the handover to the council included holding mass according to the Wendish rite in the monastery church, setting up a school in the convent buildings and protecting the altars , images of saints, vestments and chalices from profanation . In the period that followed, a council Latin school was actually set up in the monastery buildings , which Gotthold Ephraim Lessing later attended. As agreed, the church served the Sorbian-language Protestant service that had previously been celebrated in the Catechism Church and was given the name Wendish Church .
In 1672 a gallery was built. The fires of 1707 and 1842, which destroyed large parts of the city and the convent buildings, left at least the interior of the church intact. After 1842 the interior of the church was completely redesigned: Numerous furnishings were removed and only returned to the church in 1911. In the course of this work, the windows on the south side were also broken out, with a medieval fresco painting being destroyed, and the bell crowning over the west gable, which Gottfried Semper was also involved in planning . In addition, the church received new stalls, a new pulpit, the west gallery and a 26-register organ by Johann Gottlob Mende , which was restored in 1994.
After parts of the initial painting of the choir vault were revealed in 2003, this was completely exposed as part of the interior renovation of the church in 2009. In the process, missing areas were partially added to the paint layers (so-called retouching ). In 2010 it was possible to renew the depiction of Anna Selbdritt from 1512 , which was discovered during the restoration work on the triumphal arch . It is a Secco painting .
Present: church and museum
Until the beginning of the 21st century, the monastery church served primarily as a concert and exhibition space. Festive worship services as well as ecumenical and school services were held here.
In December 2009, the parish and the city of Kamenz signed a 50-year cooperation agreement on the use and redesign of the church, which was concluded in August 2011. Since then, the church has continued to be used for church services on the one hand, and on the other hand the room houses a museum ( sacral museum ) in which the numerous sacred art treasures from the Kamenz churches can be appropriately presented. The valuable and diverse collection of the museum tells of Franciscans, donors, the veneration of saints and the time of the Reformation. In particular, the ensemble of five late Gothic carved altars, which is spanned by a Gothic ribbed vault, is unique in the area and invites you to discover the art of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The visitor encounters many highlights in the showcases. For example, a precious reliquary altar from 1400, the Bornkindl from the time of Martin Luther or the pair of pictures "Law and Grace" from 1542 painted by Wolfgang Krodel , a Cranach student.
The house is an important stop on the Via Sacra, a tourist route that connects unique buildings and art treasures in Upper Lusatia, Lower Silesia and Northern Bohemia.
The museum regularly holds special exhibitions on art and cultural-historical topics as well as positions in contemporary art. It offers artists a unique space in this region in several respects. Just as medieval objects are enlivened by contemporary images and concepts, the religious environment can also enrich contemporary art.
The Kamenz tourist information center was also located in a functional extension for the church and art museum.
Building description
The remarkable location of the monastery “in front of the walls” is no longer effective today, as the convent buildings no longer exist and the outer city fortifications have been torn down. The church is currently free-standing as a towerless hall church with a steep gable roof . The building is made of rubble and plastered. On the east and west side of the nave there are gables decorated with bricks .
The interior as a three - aisled, four - bay hall appears bright and wide. Six octagonal sandstone pillars support the regular parallel rib vault in the nave. A triumphal arch divides the nave from the three-bay choir room with a 3/8 end, the ceiling of which is also vaulted.
Furnishing
The furnishings are extraordinary for the size of the city and for a Protestant church. Five late Gothic winged altars and figures from altars that have not been preserved dominate the room. Another altar ( St. Mary's Coronation Altar ), which originally stood in the monastery church, is now the high altar in the burial church of St. Just .
| Name / patronage | Year of origin | description | image |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anna Altar (main altar) | around 1512/13 or around 1520 | Predella depicting Holy Communion, on the side the coat of arms of the founder - of King Vladislav II or his son King Ludwig II ; Anna herself third in the shrine , God the Father floating above in clouds; in the wings holy clan ; on the back of the wings based on graphic templates ( Dürer and Schongauer ) paintings: Judas kiss, carrying the cross, Jesus before Pilate, crucifixion. In 1582 Elisabeth of Austria , who after her time as Queen of France in Vienna devoted herself to poor welfare and nursing, wanted to purchase the altar donated by her great-aunt Maria through Administrator Leisentritt - perhaps it should be used to furnish the Clarisse monastery in Vienna . The Kamenz Council rejected the sale. | |
| Mary Altar | around 1512/13 or around 1520 | Predella (probably actually belonging to the clan altar [see below]) with representation of three church fathers; in the shrine Mary with a halo, surrounded by a pair of angels; left wing above Annunciation, below nativity, right wing above Visitation, below Adoration of the Magi; on the back of the wings painted representations from Maria's life. | |
| Kinship altar | around 1512/13 or around 1520 | without predella; in the middle shrine Mary with the Christ Child and Anna, above Joseph and Anna's men; in the side wings Maria Cleophas and Maria Salome and other members of the Holy Tribe; on the reverse the representation of the carved shrine is repeated in panel paintings. Two panels, now in the Museum of Fine Arts in Leipzig, may have originally formed the outer wings. On the inside the holy clan and on the outside Joachim and Anna are depicted. The complete altar would therefore repeat the carved festival side in painting in the first change, and when closed would show the meeting at the golden gate. | |
| Francis altar | around 1515 | Predella bearing the cross (based on models by Martin Schongauer ); Central shrine with stigmatization of St. Francis; carved wing reliefs with stations from Francis' life (renunciation of the father and renunciation of all earthly goods, dream of Pope Innocent III, sermon of Francis, death of Francis); in the first transformation panel painting with the miracles of the saint; on the back four paintings with three helpers each. | |
| Savior altar | re. 1513 | Predella left Nativity, right Adoration of the Magi, in between an architecture, possibly a tabernacle; Christ center shrine flanked by Francis and Bernard of Siena ; in the wings saints and martyrs of the Franciscans; on the back depictions of the apostles (again based on models by Martin Schongauer ). |
organ
After the city fire of 1842, in which all monastery buildings were destroyed, the church lost its roof, but the interior remained almost undamaged, the interior of the church was redesigned. In 1848 the city council decided to have an organ planned for the church and asked the Dresden court organist Johann Gottlob Schneider for an expert opinion. In 1849/50 the organ by Johann Gottlob Mende, which was to be his last masterpiece, was installed - Mende died on August 14, 1850. When in 1891 the neo-Gothic Walcker organ was installed in the main church of St. Mary in Kamenz and the Schurig- When the organ was "destroyed", a register - the Aeoline 8 '(Fugara 8') - was taken over into the Mende organ of the monastery church. The coat of arms of Electoral Saxony with the two lions from the old organ prospect of St. Mary's Church found its new place on the organ gallery of the monastery church.
Peal
The ringing consists of a bronze bell , which hangs in the bell gable on a wooden bell yoke. Below is a data overview of the bell:
| No. | Casting date | Caster | material | diameter | Dimensions | Chime |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1922 | Bell foundry JG Weinholdt | bronze | 760 mm | 250 kg | H' |
Trivia
In August 2020, the Krodel painting “Law and Grace” caused a sensation. As part of social media marketing , photos of the double image, which thematized the crucifixion of Jesus, were posted on Facebook and blocked as glorifying violence by the algorithm check. The manual check led to the same result. After a complaint and re-examination, the picture could be seen again on Facebook.
literature
- Rainer Thümmel : Bells in Saxony . Sound between heaven and earth. Ed .: Evangelical Regional Church Office of Saxony . 2nd, updated and supplemented edition. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2015, ISBN 978-3-374-02871-9 , p. 312 (With a foreword by Jochen Bohl and photographs by Klaus-Peter Meißner}).
- Cornelius Gurlitt : Descriptive representation of the older architectural and art monuments of the Kingdom of Saxony: The cities of Kamenz and Pulsnitz. 36th issue, Dresden 1912. - digital.slub-dresden.de
- Georg Dehio : Handbook of German Art Monuments : Saxony I. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-422-03043-3 .
- Klaus Mertens: Evangelical Churches Kamenz. Small art guide No. 2011, Schnell & Steiner, Munich 1992.
- Markus Hörsch: Representation of the Jagiellonian rulers in the Bohemian neighboring countries. For furnishing the former Franciscan observant church in Kamenz. In: Tomasz Torbus (Hrsg.): The art in the Markgraftum Oberlausitz during the Jagiellonian rule . (Studia Jagellonica Lipsiensia 3) Thorbecke, Ostfildern 2006, ISBN 978-3-7995-8403-6 , pp. 187-216.
- Albrecht Sturm: Evangelical Churches Kamenz. Small art guide No. 2011 (3rd, revised edition), Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2009.
- Paul Rubardt, Ernst Jentsch: Kamenzer Organ Book. A contribution to the history of organ building in Saxony. Oberlausitzer Druckwerkstätten, Kamenz 1953.
- Jörg Freund (company restoration + color design): Work report on the restoration of the Saxon coat of arms with lions. 2010.
- Sören Fischer: Museums as places of dialogue between the Middle Ages and the present: The St. Annen Sacral Museum in Kamenz as an example , in Oberlausitzer Hausbuch 2017, Bautzen 2016, ISBN 978-3-945911-11-2 , pp. 47–50.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ kirchgemeinde-kamenz.de ( Memento of the original from April 27, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Prize of the KiBa Foundation 2014 ( Memento of the original from March 1, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Description of the station on oberlausitz.com
- ↑ mariamagdalena-kamenz.de
- ↑ Judith Oexle et al. a. (Ed.): Time and Eternity. 128 days in St. Marienstern. Exhibition catalog for the Saxon State Exhibition 1998. Verlag Janos Stekovics, Halle (Saale) 1998, ISBN 3-932863-06-2 , here p. 275.
- ↑ Description of the altars in Kamenz churches with illustrations
- ^ Rainer Thümmel : Bells in Saxony . Sound between heaven and earth. Ed .: Evangelical Regional Church Office of Saxony . 2nd, updated and supplemented edition. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2015, ISBN 978-3-374-02871-9 , pp. 287 (With a foreword by Jochen Bohl and photographs by Klaus-Peter Meißner).
Coordinates: 51 ° 16 '16.9 " N , 14 ° 5' 39.9" E