St. Trinity Monastery Church (Neuruppin)
The St. Trinity Monastery Church is the largest church in the city of Neuruppin . It was built together with the associated monastery in 1246 and, with its striking towers, forms the town's landmark.
description
The church stands on the banks of the Ruppiner See on the edge of the old town of Neuruppin. The building is a Gothic brick church with a pair of neo-Gothic towers. The church was built in several phases from the 1st half of the 13th century. The Gothic hall church consists of the three-aisled nave and a four-bay choir with a polygonal end (7/12 end). The two 62.5 meter high towers are in the corners between the choir and aisles. The interior is 62.5 meters long; the choir takes up about half the length. In the western tower there is the belfry with three bells, the eastern tower (facing the lake) serves as a viewing tower. The position of the monastery on the shore of the lake determined the orientation of the church, whose choir is oriented to the northeast. The orientation therefore deviates from the usual easting .
history
In the 13th century, the Dominican monastery in Neuruppin was founded as the first branch of the order between the Elbe and Oder by the first prior Wichmann von Arnstein . The choir of the monastery church was completed in 1246, the main nave later. The monastery buildings were directly attached to the church. According to the rules of the order , the church originally had no tower, but only a small roof turret .
In the course of the Reformation , ownership of the monastery fell to the Elector Joachim von Brandenburg around 1540 . In 1564 he donated the monastery to the city. The monastery church was restored and a hospital was set up in the remaining monastery buildings . During this time there is a legend depicted in the monastery church about a mouse chasing a rat. Theodor Fontane writes:
“The interior of the church, despite its inscriptions, is still barely bare enough to enjoy the" mouse and rat "that the painter who painted the ceiling painted the vault, following a semi-legendary tradition. But the tradition itself is as follows. A few days after the church had been opened for Lutheran worship in 1564, two clergy friends, one of whom was still standing by the monastery, walked through the central nave and disputed the question of the day. "A mouse will sooner chase a rat over the vault here," cried the Dominican, "than that this church remains Lutheran." The Lutheran was spared any answer to this; he only pointed to the ceiling where the miracle was taking place.
Our sandy soil has not produced too much of such legends, and so we have to keep the little that is there. "
The church was consecrated to the Holy Trinity on the 2nd Sunday after Trinity in 1564 by Pastor Mag. Andreas Buchow .
During the French occupation in 1806, the monastery church was used as a prison camp for Prussian soldiers, in the following years as a flour and bread store and again in 1813 as a prison camp for French soldiers. In 1816 the monastery buildings were demolished with the exception of the church. From 1834 the monastery church was on the instructions of King Friedrich Wilhelm III. Renovated according to plans by Karl Friedrich Schinkel and inaugurated on May 16, 1841 in the presence of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV . The painting, the large rose window above the entrance door and the edging of the sandstone panels on the main altar are due to Schinkel . Schinkel also had a 58-meter-high, three-story wooden tower built on the south gable, which was demolished in 1882 due to its dilapidation. In 1905, the church was expanded to include the two striking towers according to plans by the Royal Building Councilor Ludwig Dihm . The topping-out ceremony took place on August 5th, 1907, the inauguration ceremony on June 9th, 1908 in the presence of Crown Prince Wilhelm .
On May 1, 1945, white flags on the tower (as well as on the parish church of Sankt Marien ) signaled the handover of the city to the advancing Soviet army, which Neuruppin had previously asked to surrender.
From 1974 to 1978 the church was renewed as part of a special building program in the GDR , in which construction projects on church buildings in the GDR were carried out with funds from the Evangelical Church in West Germany . A mezzanine floor was drawn into the church in the last yoke of the main nave, where a parish room and a heated winter church were separated by a glass wall . In the course of these measures, the Protestant parish of Neuruppin decided to use the monastery church of St. Trinity as the main place of worship and to give up the dilapidated parish church of St. Mary. The monastery church was inaugurated on the 1st of Advent (November 27th) 1977 as a community center. The Neuruppin artist Gisela Heyner had designed the glass windows with biblical motifs as early as 1958, and these were renewed during the construction work.
At the time of the fall of the Wall , prayers for peace were regularly held in the monastery church from October 10, 1989 , and on November 3, 1989 the New Forum Neuruppin met in the church for its first general assembly. In 1996 the Niemöllerplatz around the monastery church was redesigned based on old plans by Peter Joseph Lenné . Extensive renovation work was carried out from 2011 to 2012. The tower roofs were re-covered, rotten parts of the roof structure were replaced and the masonry of the choir was secured with ring anchors and steel cables. The work, with a total cost of € 1,100,000, was officially ended on the 1st of Advent (December 2nd) 2012 with a festive service.
Furnishing
On the one hand, the altar retable , which is dated to the end of the 14th century and depicts scenes from the life of Christ in two rows and stylistically shows the Bohemian influence in the Mark Brandenburg , is still late medieval . What is special is that the sandstone altarpiece contains a representation of the birth of Christ with a midwife . It is to be assigned to the area around the Havelberger rood screen. On the other hand, there are several sandstone reliefs from the late Middle Ages that belong to the time of the altarpiece and are now placed in the choir polygon, as well as a sandstone figure of a Dominican (often associated with Father Wichmann, 1378/80) and a Pietà (1425-50) also made of sandstone.
The two wooden figures depicting Mary and John (1460–70) date from the transition to the early modern period . The big bell by the Dutch bell founder Gerhard van Wou came from 1490, and has been replaced by three cast steel bells due to excessive damage. A life-size crucifix (around 1500) that did not originally belong to the monastery church comes from the chapel of the Siechen Hospital St. Lazarus . The inscriptions in the second and third yoke of the choir, which show the monastery church as the burial place of the Counts of Lindow and testify that the church building was handed over to the city of Neuruppin (1564), also date from the early modern period . Formerly the original parish church of St. Marien, which was destroyed by fire, belonged to two paintings, which the community received as a gift in 1699. One shows the reformer Philipp Melanchthon , who was born in Heidelberg , while the other shows Martin Luther .
Neo-Gothic elements - such as the former organ gallery on the west wall - in the church have now been reduced somewhat. However, they include, for example, the framing of the altarpiece and the wooden pulpit (1842) by the Neuruppin master carpenter Wilhelm Fritzsche, which is now facing the organ because of its new construction. Other paintings in the monastery church come from the town's son Wilhelm Gentz (“Banquet in the house of the Pharisee Simon”, 1854) and his son Ismael Gentz (reminder of the inauguration of the church towers in 1908). A cross of nails made of nails from the vaulted ceiling of the old Coventry Cathedral reminds Neuruppin of peace and tolerance.
organ
A new organ was installed by the Sauer company in 1983. In contrast to earlier organs, it did not find its place on a gallery, but is opposite the pulpit at the connection between the choir and the nave. It cost about 200,000 German marks . The 1600 pipes of the 24 registers are distributed over two manuals and pedal . The wind turbine was provided by the partner church district in Karlsruhe , West Germany . The new organ was inaugurated on April 29, 1984. She has the following disposition :
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P
The organ is to be expanded with a twin plant by 2021.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Historical Association of the County of Ruppin eV (ed.): The towers of the Neuruppin monastery church - commemorative publication for the 100th anniversary of its inauguration . Neuruppin June 6, 2008.
- ↑ Johannes Schultze: History of the city of Neuruppin . Stapp, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-87776-931-4 .
- ^ A b c Brigitte Meier: Fontanestadt Neuruppin: a city history in data . Ed. Rieger, Karwe bei Neuruppin 2003, ISBN 3-935231-31-8 .
- ^ Theodor Fontane: Walks through the Mark Brandenburg - First part: The county of Ruppin . Berlin March 9, 1892, Neuruppin - 1. A walk through the city. The monastery church. ( Project Gutenberg [accessed on May 1, 2020]).
- ^ Gerhard Zimmermann (Ed.): The Brandenburg Church Visitation Farewells and Register of the XVI. and XVII. Century . Second volume: The Land of Ruppin . Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin 1963.
- ^ Parish church council Neuruppin (ed.): The parish church of St. Marien zu Neuruppin - its destruction 200 years ago and its new building . Neuruppin December 15, 1986.
- ↑ Petra Waschescio: The landmark is saved . In: Ruppiner Anzeiger. 3rd December 2012.
- ↑ Verena Friedrich: Neuruppin, St. Trinitatis . Kunstverlag Peda, Passau 1995, ISBN 3-930102-68-4 .
- ↑ Disposition of the organ on the organ page, accessed on February 8, 2017
- ↑ The organ of the monastery church , seen on May 1, 2020
Coordinates: 52 ° 55 ′ 21.5 " N , 12 ° 48 ′ 36.1" E