Kreuzkirche (Zittau)
The Kreuzkirche Zittau is a secularized Gothic church in Zittau in Saxony . It is considered to be the largest single-pillar room in Germany and is used as a museum for the exhibition of the Großer Zittauer Lenten Cloth.
History and architecture
The Kreuzkirche in Zittau was built towards the end of the 14th century as a Gothic single-pillar room based on the Bohemian model ( St. Mary on the lawn in Prague ) and was presumably consecrated in 1410. The size and type of the church in Upper Lusatia can only be compared with the Barbarakirche in Ebersbach ( Schöpstal ). The building used as a burial church was damaged by fire in 1643 and restored between 1651 and 1654, with the architectural details of the exterior being simplified except for the portals. In 1793 a plaster ceiling was installed in the choir. After the deed in 1972 and a long period of neglect, the building has been restored since 1986.
The building is a plastered quarry stone building with two buttresses on the west side and one each on the north and south side, high pointed arch windows and a saddle roof , on which a roof turret with a hood and a very slender tip sits. The drawn-in, steeply proportioned choir closes with a five-eighth end with slender two- and three-part pointed arched windows, some of which are tracery . The sacristy adjoins the north wall of the choir and has a small stair tower on the west side in the corner of the nave. On the south side the church is accessed through a keel arched portal studded with crabs with a finial in the apex between two flanking pinnacles ; a simpler portal can be found on the west side.
Inside, the single- pillar room, which is square in plan, is closed off by a twelve-sided, cantoned pillar with a star vault . The room is opened to the choir by a triumphal arch on figurative consoles. The two-bay choir closes with a flat ceiling, the sacristy with a cross vault with a Christ head in the keystone.
On the north, west and south walls there are single-storey galleries with rustic tendril paintings on the parapets from 1654, which have been partially covered by epitaphs and pictures since 1680 . On the walls there are remains of Bohemian-influenced wall paintings of pseudo-architecture , on the north wall of the choir there are wall paintings of Christ's instruments of passion in a red-green, woven frame from the 15th century.
Furnishing
The most valuable exhibit in the church, which is used as a museum, is the medieval Große Zittauer Lenten Cloth from 1472. It comes from the Johanniskirche Zittau and is one of the most important preserved medieval textiles. After the eventful post-war fate, it has been exhibited here in the largest museum showcase in the world since 1999.
A small wooden aedicula -Altar with an image of the crucifixion is edged with two twisted columns and a cranked beams. The side of the altar has richly entwined scrollwork and two pyramids above the columns as well as a crowning segment gable with the lion of St. Mark and the date 1654.
The pulpit, which is also decorated with scrollwork, has a black and gold frame and shows wooden figures of the evangelists between small three-quarter columns on the polygonal basket . The sound cover bears four angel figures with the tools of Christ's passion and a figure of Salvator mundi . In front of the staircase to the pulpit is a small pedestal, dated 1654, with a seat and canopy. On the north wall of the choir is a crucifix from the second half of the 15th century with two associated figures of Maria and John with richly worked folds.
graveyard
The church is surrounded by a cemetery with numerous artistically valuable grave monuments. Of these, the Mönchsche crypt from the beginning of the 18th century on the northwest side and the Finksche crypt house next to it, dated 1730, should be mentioned in particular. The monk's crypt is a rectangular crypt house with a wide, flat-arched entrance, which is framed by two Tuscan half-columns. Above it is a richly designed attic floor with a figure of death at the end. The Fink crypt house shows pilasters placed over a corner with cranked cornices, which flank an entrance closed with a curved arch. To the side of the pilasters is an allegorical sandstone figure of heavenly glory. Strong volutes with a tail gable behind it lie above the cornice . Inside there is a monument to Christian Fink, dated 1756, a sarcophagus-like substructure with two pediments with allegories of hope and love.
There is also the magnificent Schröersche crypt house with rocaille decorations and rich wrought iron lattice from around 1720 on the north wall on a rectangular floor plan with three openings, the middle of which is designed like shoulder arches and shows the Schröer coat of arms in the richly designed keystone and on the sides Hermenpilaster. The Michaelsche Grufthaus from 1731 at the south entrance has a wide shoulder-arch-like opening with shield-holding female figures, which is framed by pairs of Ionic pilasters.
literature
- Barbara Bechter, Wiebke Fastenrath et al. (Edit.): Dehio-Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler, Saxony I, administrative district Dresden. Deutscher Kunstverlag , Munich / Berlin 1996, ISBN 3-422-03043-3 , pp. 874–876.
- Friedrich and Helga Möbius: Sacred architecture. Union Verlag, Berlin 1958, p. 229.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Information on the Zittauer Fastentuch on the website of the city of Zittau. Retrieved April 18, 2018 .
Coordinates: 50 ° 53 ′ 52.4 " N , 14 ° 48 ′ 39.7" E