Liebfrauenkirche (Wernigerode)
The Liebfrauenkirche is a dedicated church building and cultural monument in the city of Wernigerode .
history
The originally Romanesque building with two towers was first mentioned in 1230 and completely destroyed in the fire in the Burgstrasse district in 1751. With financial support from the Danish royal family and the ruling Count Christian Ernst zu Stolberg-Wernigerode , the reconstruction was carried out between 1756 and 1762 in the Baroque style according to plans by the Count's master builder Johann Friedrich Heintzmann . The small baroque tower was replaced in 1891 by an oversized neo-Gothic adaptation of a five-button tower with four clocks in between and four upper towers.
Originally the whole church was supposed to be rebuilt in neo-Gothic style, but at that time the community lacked the financial means, and so the new construction of the tower remained. The tower now houses three bells and the tower clock and can be climbed as a lookout point. In 2018 the church was sold to the Wernigerode Cultural Foundation , which would like to convert it into a concert hall. The cultural foundation promotes this project with the name Konzerthaus Liebfrauen .
On February 3, 2019, the church was deedicated in a service and the associated task as a Protestant place of worship. The incumbent superintendent of the Halberstadt parish, Christoph Carstens and the regional bishop provost Christoph Hackbeil read the deed of dedication. Then the construction work to convert the church into a concert hall begins.
Building description
The architecture of the partly plastered roe stone church is rather simple. The basic shape of the church is a rectangle measuring 17.20 m (width) by 31.70 m (length). On the north and south sides there is an extension measuring 4.70 m by 7.20 m. A cornice runs along the north, south and east sides at a height of about 3 m, which divides the church on the outside. In the lower part there are small arched windows, in the upper part high arched windows. The east side of the Liebfrauenkirche was designed as a fixed side. The main entrance was also located there. That was new and unfamiliar at the time, as you had entered the old Liebfrauenkirche from the west. The central part of the facade is slightly highlighted and is finished with a triangular gable above a frieze. In this gable is a sandstone cartridge with copper rays. It bears the inscription Deo et Evangelio Jesu Christ (Latin: God and the Gospel of Jesus Christ ) In the frieze below it is written: Christiano Ernesto Comite in Stolberg Regnate Henrico Ernesto filio et Christiano Friederico nepote florentibus MDCCLXII (This means that Count Christian Ernst, meant his son Heinrich Ernst and his grandson Christian Friedrich, who “may all bloom in their lives”). The frieze and the gable decoration were made by the sculptor Johann Samuel Blättner from Halberstadt . There are also three plaque-like surfaces above the door of the east entrance. However, none of the building specifications mention paintings or lettering.
The cross shape is indicated by the additions to the south and north. The entrance in the south leads to the sacristy, that of the north side in the manorial box opposite the altar. The count's family took part in the church services in this manorial box.
tower
The approximately 60 meter high tower of the Liebfrauenkirche is made of sandstone. It is flanked on both sides by two extensions, each of which in turn has a small turret. The main tower is reinforced by stepped buttresses. These extend up to the level of the sound window. Above the acoustic windows there are four corner watch towers that limit the pointed helmet. Four very small pointed helmets protrude from the upper third of the pointed helmet. For Sunday services, you enter the church today through the entrance in the tower. This portal is tiered and bears the Lamb of God in its tympanum .
In the spring of 1891 today's tower clock was installed, which was made by the large clock factory Ed. Korfhage & Sons from Buehr. The clock itself is largely made of cast iron. This watch has remained unchanged to this day. It is still wound by hand, even after the general overhaul in 2005. Their dials each have a diameter of 2 m.
inner space
If you enter the church from the east through the former main entrance, i.e. from Burgstrasse, you will probably be surprised at first by the furnishings and the interior layout. The interior of the church is simple and has hardly been changed to this day. It gives the visitor a good example of a rectangular hall church of Baroque, similar to the former garrison church in Potsdam . The simple wooden ceiling is designed as a hipped wooden barrel and spans the interior as a “wooden sky”. The floor of the entire church is made of red bricks.
Furnishing
The interior of the church today is a good testimony to the high level of skill of the Wernigerode sculptors. As a result of the conversion of the church into a concert hall, all movable cultural and artistic assets will be transferred from the Liebfrauenkirche to the St. Sylvestri Church . It thus remains in the possession of the parish. These include crucifixes, portrait paintings, chests, song boards, vasa sacra and others. Fixed components that shape the space become the property of the cultural foundation and remain in the church. The stalls will be expanded, and there will also be changes to the galleries. The baptismal font is to be loaned to the monastery church in Ilsenburg.
The organ remains in the possession of the parish and is maintained by them.
altar
The altar was made as a pulpit altar by the count's court carpenter Johann Michael Möser , and he provided the design for it in 1759. The altar block is made of the same red bricks as the floor of the church. A staggered podium rises above it. The pulpit is flanked left and right by two Corinthian-style columns. The sound cover of the pulpit looks like a canopy. The upper end of the altar is a cross in a flaming wreath, below is a wooden plaque with the inscription Jehovah Light in Right .
The garment above the doors to the right and left of the altar is decorated with carvings in a shell motif. These decorations can also be found on the pulpit basket, on the cheeks of the kneelers to the left and right of the altar, and on the gable top of the altar. Fruit motifs can also be seen. The carvings on the pulpit altar were made by the Halberstadt sculptor Josef F. Bartoli . Above the altar, which, like the stalls and the manorial box, is stained dark, there is a third floor with four further windows that lead to the church. In the room behind the pulpit, on the 2nd floor of the altar, so to speak, is the children's worship room, which was inaugurated by the congregation in 2012. Here the children go to “their” own worship service during the sermon, which is organized by members of the congregation.
Altarpiece
The altarpiece was probably painted in 1760 by Christian Bernhard Rode from Berlin , a court painter of Frederick the Great and a student of Antoine Pesnes . It depicts a crucifixion scene in which the body of Christ alone dominates the picture. Only a few people frame the scene: in the front left Mary, the mother of Jesus, next to the disciple John. Maria Magdalena can be seen behind Johannes, almost hidden. The captain looms behind the cross, and in the front right the soldiers can see the dice. Unfortunately, it is not known whether the picture was painted explicitly for the Church of Our Lady, or whether it came here by chance. What is certain, however, is that paintings with biblical content were a special concern of Rode's life, which is why he made generous gifts to the church. The connection between Rode and the Church of Our Lady probably originated from the Halberstadt poet Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim . He was friends with the then ruling Count von Stolberg, Count Christian Ernst. When Gleim stayed here in 1761, the picture may have come to Wernigerode later.
Princely or sovereign box
Opposite the pulpit altar is the prince's or ruler's box, also made of dark-stained wood. From there, the count's family took part in the services. The structure of the royal box is reminiscent of a house facade with three floors. Below is the council booth, above the stately box. This bears the coat of arms of the manorial family and the coat of arms of the city of Wernigerode as the upper end. The crowning and capitals of the lodge were created by the sculptor Johann Samuel Blättner from Blankenburg . Blättner's work is also the carved cheeks of the kneelers on the pulpit altar.
Baptismal font and stalls
The arrangement of the church stalls in longitudinal and transverse rows around the pulpit altar results in a square with an area of around 17 m² in the middle of the church space. There, in the center of the church , is the Gothic font. The round sandstone baptismal font is located on a square shaft. The baptismal font is provided with ogival bulges facing each other. The baptismal font ends at the top in an octagonal edge. The sculptor Blättner mentioned earlier carried out the elaboration of the Tauff stone in 1762, which probably means a kind of restoration. The tin baptismal font was cast in the same year by the Wernigerode tin caster Christoph Carl Wenck .
The inside of the church is surrounded by narrow priechen on the outside walls , which are closed by windows and were previously used as separate prayer stalls.
The stalls, which have been preserved in their original form as box stalls, are just as typical of Protestant church building in their arrangement in the rectangle around the altar as the structural unit of altar and pulpit. This means that the “new” Church of Our Lady was designed from the ground up as a Protestant church. Noticeable on the stalls are the lettering of the seats above the hymn book shelves. In order to raise the financial means for the rebuilding of the church after the fire around 1751, many pews were rented or sold for a fee. The names of the tenants who bought or rented these places can still be seen.
Church window
Some of the stained glass windows were replaced in the 1920s by the stained glass windows that existed in the church today. The parish tried to win donors for the individual discs by allowing the donors to perpetuate themselves in “their” disc with their names or coats of arms. In this way, the plinth windows were created, which now adorn the church interior all around in the lower area. The city of Wernigerode itself and the Count's House each donated a window. These can be seen under the east gallery.
The two large stained glass windows to the right and left of the altar show the crucifixion of Jesus Christ with the signature “It is finished” (right of the altar) and the resurrection of Jesus Christ with the signature “I live and you should also live” (John 14, 19) on the left. The two windows were made by the Ferdinand Müller company from Quedlinburg . During renovation work in 1990/91, the large church windows, with the exception of the two stained glass windows, were replaced. Two windows that date from the year the new Church of Our Lady was built can be seen above the sacristy. Like all other church windows (with the exception of the plinth windows and the windows to the left and right of the altar), these windows are colorless or transparent.
organ
The church has a two-storey gallery on the narrow sides of the church in the east and west . The galleries are located on or in the four corners of the interior of the church. The pillars of the galleries are decorated with carved tendrils. Both galleries and pillars are made of light wood, the gallery balustrades have sparse gold decorations. The organ has found and kept its place on the top floor of the west gallery. There was already an organ in the old Liebfrauenkirche. This was built by Christoph Cuntzius . In 1705 he was commissioned to “produce a completely new work”. In 1707 the organ was finished by Cuntzius and shortly afterwards it was examined by several cantors from the Wernigerode area. Conrad Heinrich Möser , a sculptor from Nöschenrode, carried out the carving work on the Cuntzius organ together with Henning Wehler from Halberstadt . The contract with Möser and Wehler was signed in 1707, and the work was completed in the same year.
During the city fire in 1751, the Cuntzius organ burned down together with the Liebfrauenkirche. When the new Church of Our Lady was inaugurated in 1762, the congregation had to forego the sound of an organ. In 1761, the Wernigerode organ builder Christian Braun provided a cost estimate for the fir and oak wood required for the construction. However, the contract was not signed immediately. In 1765 the organ was inaugurated, but the prospectus was still missing. In 1783, sculptural work was carried out on the organ prospect by Josef F. Bartoli .
In 1862 the community began to collect donations for an organ repair because the old work could no longer be saved. The well-known organ building company Sauer built a new work with 30 registers on two manuals and a pedal in the prospectus of the previous organ . This organ was first played in the service on June 27, 1883. It is an important instrument in Wernigerode, as it is the last unchanged Romanesque organ in Wernigerode (the organ of the Johanniskirche was slightly rearranged in between). The Sauer organ of the Liebfrauen Church (Opus 401 of the company) already has a sill that affects the upper manual. It has a spoon step and two steps (either open or closed).
The instrument, which was used to accompany the Sunday services until it was deedicated, is currently in a relatively poor condition. The Sauer organ of the Liebfrauenkirche has the following disposition:
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P
- Playing aids : combination pedal, tutti, sill II
Bells
When the Liebfrauenkirche burned down in 1752, only the small prayer bell could be saved from the old bells . It was encased in the metal of one of the two large bells like a cloak and therefore survived the fire. In 1890 three new bronze bells were cast by the Franz Schilling & Sons foundry . The two large ones had to be handed in to be melted down during the First World War , only the small one could remain on site. Until 1924, the financial means did not allow new bells to be poured. In 1924 three new steel bells were cast by Linke Hofmann AG from Lauchhammer. So the small bronze bell that still existed was replaced by a steel bell.
The tones chosen were: d 1 , f sharp 1 , and a 1 . The big bell weighs 2,500 kg, has a diameter of 1,830 mm and bears the names of Pastor Freiherr von Rechenberg and Pastor Theodor Rabe in addition to the inscription Jesu hilf siegen . The middle bell has a diameter of 1,450 mm and a weight of 1,250 kg. It bears the inscription Jesus help believe and the inscription Donated by His Highness to Prince Christian Ernst zu Stolberg-Wernigerode and her Highness Princess Marie zu Stolberg-Wernigerode in 1924 . The smallest bell has a diameter of 1,200 mm and a weight of 710 kg and, in addition to the inscription Jesus help pray, bears the names of all those who contributed money to the purchase of the bells.
| Bell jar | diameter | Weight | Chime |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jesus help win | 1,830 mm | 2,500 kg | d 1 |
| Jesus help believe | 1,450 mm | 1,250 kg | f sharp 1 |
| Jesus help pray | 1,200 mm | 710 kg | a 1 |
literature
- Viola Berwig-Holtzhauer: Wernigerode - Church of Our Lady. Art publisher Peda Gregor, Passau 2005, ISBN 3-89643-604-X .
Web links
- Website of the evangelical parish of St. Sylvestri and Liebfrauen
- Liebfrauenkirche in the Harz travel guide
- Liebfrauen concert hall in Wernigerode
Individual evidence
- ↑ Regina Urbat: The Kulturkirche becomes the Harz Philharmonic Hall. In: volksstimme.de. November 7, 2018, accessed December 22, 2018 .
- ↑ a b Church music Wernigerode - Liebfrauenkirche is decommissioned - organ remains the church property. Retrieved January 26, 2019 . ; see also community letter February 2018 p. 12 (PDF; 11.1 MB)
- ↑ St. Johannis parish: Event plan February 2019. Archived from the original on February 4, 2019 ; accessed on February 4, 2019 .
Coordinates: 51 ° 49 ′ 56.2 ″ N , 10 ° 47 ′ 19.1 ″ E