Assumption of Mary (Most)

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Church of the Assumption
Church of the Assumption in 2006

The Assumption of Mary is a late Gothic church in the Czech city ​​of Most (German: Brüx), construction of which began in 1517 after the major fire of 1515. For the construction was Jacob Haylmann , a pupil of the architect Benedikt Ried , responsible. Construction was completed in the 17th century.

The building became famous in the 20th century when it was moved 841 meters. To this day, the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin holds the Guinness Record for the transport of the heaviest freight on rails.

history

East facade

The predecessor of today's church was the early Gothic three-aisled basilica , built between 1253 and 1257 , which goes back to an edict of Pope Boniface VIII . Only the eastern crypt and the inner masonry of the western tower remain from the original church . 1501 confirmed Pope Alexander VI. with the intercession of King Vladislav II, the patronage of the city of Most over the church, which until then was operated by the Monastery of the Holy Sepulcher in Zderaz near Prague. This church was destroyed in a major fire in the city of Most in 1515.

Since the financing of the new building of the church could not be completely covered by city funds, a debt collection was requested. In 1516, the citizens of Leo X and other ecclesiastical dignitaries received permission to organize a public collection for the new church. A similar permission was built by King Ludwig II. Jagiellonian and the Polish king I. Sigismund issued. The collection took place from March 1517 to May 1519 in Bohemia , Moravia , Saxony , Lusatia and Silesia . Together with other donations, a total of 12,155 kick and 45 groschen were won. The city had to give a third of the sum to the papal curia, the remaining money was used for the construction of the church and other buildings, such as the rectory or school.

From August 20, 1517, the construction of the church on the ruins of the old church began by master builder Jakob Haylmann from Schweinfurt , a student of Benedict Ried. He designed the church as a large three-aisled hall church with a retracted choir, a pentagonal choir , a prismatic tower with a gallery in the main facade, an anteroom on the north wall and a north-west sacristy . In 1518 Georg (Jörg) von Maulbron took over the management of the construction project, followed in 1531 by Master Peter Heilmann. In the second decade of the 16th century, the vaults of the courtyard chapels were completed, the inner columns and the surrounds of the vault ribs were erected. In 1532 the windows were glazed and carved with ribs. In 1549 the shell was completed and around 1550 portals in the Renaissance style were built.

During the next town fire in 1578, the church was destroyed again and restored until 1602. It was consecrated in 1594 by the Archbishop of Prague, Zbynek Berka von Dube . Over the centuries, minor changes were made to the exterior and interior of the building. In 1650 the church was covered with a new roof.

A separate baroque bell tower was built on the church in 1765 , which was damaged during a major fire in Most in 1820 and then rebuilt. In 1840 the cemetery wall around the church and the ossuary were demolished.

In the second quarter of the 18th century, the east choir was completed with a monumental main altar , complemented by life-size statues by the Tyrolean sculptor Bartholomäus Eder and paintings by the Jesuit painter Josef Kramolín .

The vault of the church, seen from the gallery.

In the years 1880-1883 the last major interior renovation was carried out by removing part of the baroque inventory, building a new Gothic painting and a neo-Gothic complex. In 1932, under the direction of the architect Karl Kohn, restoration measures were carried out on the external plaster of paris façade and stone objects.

Church with steel structure before the move
Reconstruction after the move

In 1958 the church was declared an immovable cultural monument as a landmark of the city panorama.

Shifting the church

When the city of Most had to give way to coal mining from 1967 and was rebuilt elsewhere, the Czechoslovak government issued a resolution ordering the rescue of the deanery church. The decision was based on a detailed art-historical survey of the building, which was prepared by the State Institute for Nature Conservation and Conservation in Prague. In the Ministry of Culture of the Czechoslovak Republic, a commission chaired by Stanislav Bechyně (from 1969 Alois Myslivec ) was set up to monitor the project activities and the implementation of the entire rescue operation. The adviser was the Russian civil engineer Emmanuel Gendel (1903-1994).

With government resolutions in March and May 1970 it was decided to save the church by relocating it. In the same year, the dismantled church furniture including the main altar and the moving parts of the interior were transported to a depot. In 1971 an archaeological study of the church and its surroundings was carried out. In the following years, a detailed study of the geological conditions in the church area as well as on the transfer route and on the site of the new settlement was carried out step by step. In addition, further investigations took place, such as u. a. with regard to the physico-chemical properties of the historical building materials of the church and the foundations as well as the geophysical conditions of the surroundings, also in the area of ​​the entire transport route and at the new location. In addition, numerous different laboratory tests and special tests were carried out.

In 1972 the church tower was dismantled. After that, security work began inside the church. The vault was provided with a steel structure that supported the church both inside and outside. The building was then separated from its historical foundation and placed under it with rails. The perimeter of the church was covered with a concrete wreath. The total weight of the church was 12,000 tons. Among all statically important points, 53 specially constructed hydraulic transport vehicles produced by Škoda Pilsen were placed on the constructed transport route. The trucks worked on a hydraulic principle. The hydraulics also controlled the four boom arms that were supposed to drag or brake the church. The work was computer-controlled, but manual intervention was possible.

After the postponement, the building was stabilized and gradually built up. The roof was laid, the tower was renewed and the interior was restored, removing not only the historicist decoration of the 19th century, but also the basic sacred elements, especially the main baroque altar. In 1988 the work was completed and the church was opened to the public again. It should now serve as an exhibition and concert venue. The relocation of the church resulted in a shift in the axis, so that the altar was now oriented to the south instead of to the east, which is why the church administration was reluctant to rededicate the building as a church. It was consecrated again in June 1993. Today it is used both for irregular church services and as an exhibition of the North Bohemian Gallery in Litoměřice (Severočeská galerie výtvarného umění v Litoměřicích) with valuable late Gothic sculptures and pictures.

The church environment has been changed since 1986 on an area of ​​16.57 hectares. A new city cemetery was built behind the church in a secluded area. Between 1994 and 1995, as part of the park renovation work, a 1.83 hectare water reservoir was built, which is fed with water from the Bílina River. Recently, statues from the destroyed villages of the Most district have also moved to the area around the church, and a lapidarium is being built. The MiniMost Park is nearby.

architecture

Interior view and chancel

The three-aisled late Gothic hall church in the southern German style is 60 m long and 30 m wide, has a west tower (today the north tower) with a walkway and a simple facade with two rows of windows. The lower small windows illuminate the chapels, the upper ones the nave. Inside, the church is divided into three naves by seven pairs of octagonal pillars, has drawn-in supports, a gallery and a richly decorated roof vault. Two very finely crafted spiral staircases lead to the gallery, one is a double staircase. Below the gallery there are 16 chapels with rich vaults. A polychromed Renaissance relief with biblical scenes runs along the parapet of the gallery around the whole church . The baroque main altar (originally in the east, today in the south) was built between 1735 and 1739, its sculptural decoration comes from the workshop of the sculptor Bartholomäus Eder, the large altarpiece by Josef Kramolin dates from 1773. There are statues of the Apostles and Evangelists (polychrome wood carving, 1730–1738) arranged by Johann Adam Dietz .

Restored glass windows, which were installed in the chapels of the former parish church as part of renovations at the end of the 19th / beginning of the 20th century, are exhibited on the gallery of the church. The windows were manufactured and installed by the Carl Geylings Erben company in Vienna and the royal Bavarian court glass painting Franz Xaver Zettler in Munich.

Inside the church there is an exhibition of Gothic and Renaissance art from north-west Bohemia. The basement of the church serves as an exhibition space for the art gallery in Most. Under the church there is the medieval crypt and a large reinforced concrete room that was created as the foundation for the displacement and is used for various events.

The church has a collection of five bells . The large bell, cast in 1593, has a diameter of about 1.40 meters. The second bell, around 1.10 meters in diameter, was cast in 1586. The old wooden yokes and clappers have been preserved. The old belfry was demolished with the old free-standing bell tower. Two clock bells of 1607, 1.29 meters in diameter, and 1594 with 97 centimeters in diameter are attached behind the western sound window. In the roof skylights still a small measuring bell hangs.

literature

  • Ludwig Schlesinger: The new building of the Brix parish church, communications of the Association for the History of Germans in Böhmen 28, 1890, pp. 17–55
  • Kolektiv autorů: Přesun kostela v Mostě (Sborník referátů), druhé doplněné vydání, Praha 1976, Dům techniky ČVTS Praha (Czech)
  • Josef Neuwirth : The construction of the town church in Brüx from 1517 to 1542. Studies on the history of the Gothic in Bohemia I. Prague 1892
  • Josef Neuwirth: The construction of the town church in Brüx , Brüx 1896
  • Karl Kühn, Josef Opiz: The parish church of Brüx in Bohemia. Brüx 1932
  • Götz Fehr: Benedikt Ried, a German builder between Gothic and Renaissance in Bohemia , Munich 1961
  • Mannlová-Raková Heath: Děkanský kostel v Mostě v dějinách česko-saské pozdní gotiky. Most 1969
  • Heide Mannlová-Raková: Most 1932–1982 , Most 1982
  • Mannlová-Raková Heath: Kulturní památka Most. Děkanský kostel a jeho stavitelé. Prague 1988/1989
  • Martin Myšička: Rejstřík stavby děkanského kostela Nanebevzetí Panny Marie v Mostě 1517–1519 , Ústí nad Labem 2006, ISBN 80-7044-621-8 .
  • Pavel Kalina: Benedikt Ried a počátky záalpské renesance. Praha 2009, ISBN 978-80-200-1744-4

Web links

Commons : Church of the Assumption (Most)  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gothic church: City of Most. Retrieved August 28, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b c Czech Republic online travel department: With the church around the cross: the deanery church of the Assumption of Mary in Most. September 22, 2015, accessed August 30, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Czech Republic online travel section: With the church around the cross: the deanery church of the Assumption of Mary in Most. September 22, 2015, accessed August 28, 2019 .
  4. ^ The "eventful" history of the deanery church in Most | Radio Prague. Retrieved August 28, 2019 .
  5. ↑ CzechTourism: Church of the Assumption in Most. Retrieved August 29, 2019 .
  6. ↑ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Stained_glass_windows_exhibition_in_the_church_of_the_Assumption_(Most)

Coordinates: 50 ° 31 '4.4 "  N , 13 ° 38' 55.7"  E