Neustädter Marienkirche

The Neustädter Marienkirche

The cityscape of Bielefeld in 1961. Among other things, the tower stumps of Marien- (front right) and Nicolaikirche (center) can be seen.

Floor plan of St. Mary's Church in 1906

St. Mary's Church from the northeast, 1904

The Evangelical Lutheran Neustädter Marienkirche is the largest church in Bielefeld . The church, built in the Gothic style from 1293, is a defining element of the Bielefeld cityscape and is located in the Mitte district .

history

A church on the site of today's Neustädter Marienkirche at the foot of the Sparrenberg is first mentioned in 1292 when Count Otto III. von Ravensberg presented his plan to the Bishop of Paderborn to found a monastery for canons together with his wife Hedwig . The founding day of the Marienstift was July 14th, 1293. The parish church of the “Neustadt”, which has probably been in existence since 1270, was expanded to become a collegiate church. In the course of various construction phases, the church received its present form until around 1512. The western part with the two facade towers was completed in 1494. Due to the foundation by the Count, the church is - not often - also called "Ravensberg Cathedral ". Since 1948 it has been the preaching place of the President of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia.

In the course of the Reformation , which reached Bielefeld quite late from around 1542, the church was used by both Catholic and Protestant sides at the same time. Most of the canons remained Catholic, the parish became Protestant. The pastor of the Neustädter Marienkirche at that time, Hermann Hamelmann , is considered to be a reformer of Bielefeld. For a time, the canons in the church choir held mass in the Catholic rite. In the nave, which was separated from the choir by a rood screen , the church service was celebrated in a Protestant manner, with "evangelical preaching" and German singing.

After a storm damage in 1703, the tower helmets were replaced in the following years by new tower domes in a baroque shape. The Marienstift was dissolved in 1810 and the church has since been used as the parish church of the Protestant Marian parish, which had owned the church since 1672.

From 1875 until the Second World War, the Neustädter Marienkirche also served as a place of worship for the old Catholic community of Bielefeld, which merged with the Münster community after the war.

In the great bombing raid on Bielefeld on September 30, 1944, the roof and spiers were destroyed, but the vaults remained intact. The new roof of the nave was built around 1947; the spiers were rebuilt in 1966.

Architecture and equipment

The 52-meter-long hall church can be recognized as a former collegiate church by its three-bay, conspicuously elongated choir . According to the details in the Gothic forms, especially the window tracery , it can be dated to the 14th century. The transept is likely to come from around the same time , while the western part of the three-aisled nave and the towers were probably not built until after 1450. The west portal shows tracery in the form of flamboyant . It was probably completed in 1512. Until around 1840, a rood screen typical of collegiate churches separated the choir from the nave. After the abolition of the monastery in the course of secularization , it was demolished and the church was completely redesigned into a parish church.

The two tower roofs, each 78 meters high, were rebuilt after severe war damage in 1966 based on the Gothic style. The current shape does not match the original helmets, which were undoubtedly slightly lower. Their appearance is roughly passed down.

The most valuable treasure of the church is the so-called Marienaltar, a painted triptych of 30 small scenes around a large central painting. The altarpiece, completed in 1400 by a now unknown master, was created by a painter who was trained in French art of the 1380s, the "Master of the Berswordt Retable". Two of the altarpieces ( The Flagellation and The Crucifixion ) are in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art .

The church's furnishings also include Gothic grave monuments of the Counts of Ravensberg and von Berg. There is also an epitaph in Renaissance forms . The baroque pulpit was made from 1681 to 1683 by the Bielefeld master Bernd Christoph Hattenkerl.

organ

The largest organ in Bielefeld was in the Marienkirche until 1964: An instrument made by Emil Hammer Orgelbau (there in the catalog raisonné) from 1937. The instrument had 74 registers on 4 manuals and a pedal.

In 1970 the organ building company Detlef Kleuker (Bielefeld-Brackwede) built a large organ . The slider chests -instrument had 47 registers on three manuals and pedal . The game actions were mechanical, the stop actions electric. It was dismantled and sold in September 2016.

View of the new organ

Today's organ was built by the organ building company Eule from Bautzen and consecrated on July 9, 2017. The instrument has 46 stops, including 2 prints and 6 extended stops in the pedal. The playing and stop action mechanisms are mechanical, the stop action action is also electrical.

I main work C – c 4 01. Drone 16 ′ 02. Principal 08th' 03. Flauto major 08th' 04th Viola di gamba 08th' 05. Reed flute 08th' 06th Octave 04 ′ 07th Pointed flute 04 ′ 08th. Fifth 02 2 ⁄ 3  ′ 09. Octave 02 ′ 10. Mixture IV 02 ′ 11. Cornett II-IV 02 ′ 12. Trumpet 08th'

II Swell C – c 4 13. Quintatön 16 ′ 14th Violin principal 08th' 15th Salizional 08th' 16. Covered 08th' 17th Principal 04 ′ 18th Flauto minor 02 ′ 19th Nasard 02 2 ⁄ 3  ′ 20th Forest flute 02 ′ 21st third 01 3 ⁄ 5  ′ 22nd Fifth (previously no.23) 01 1 ⁄ 3  ′ 23. Progressio harm. II-IV 02 ′ 24. Cor anglais 16 ′ 25th Clarinet 08th' Tremulant

III Swell C – c 4 26th Lovely covered 16 ′ 27. Viola d'amour 08th' 28. Flauto traverso 08th' 29 Double flute 08th' 30th Unda maris (from c 0 ) 08th' 31. Fugara 04 ′ 32. Soft flute 04 ′ 33. Violin (in advance no.34) 02 ′ 34. Harmonia aetherea III 02 2 ⁄ 3  ′ 35. oboe 08th' Tremulant

Pedal C – f 1 36. Stand (Ext. No. 39) 32 ′ 37. Principal bass 16 ′ 38. Violon bass 16 ′ 39. Sub bass 16 ′ 40. Octavbass (Ext. No. 37) 08th' 41. Violoncello (ext. 38) 08th' 42. Gedacktbass (Ext. No. 39) 04 ′ 43. Octave (Ext. No. 37) 04 ′ 44. trombone 16 ′ 45. Trombone bass 08th' 46. Clairon (Ext. No. 45) 04 ′

• Coupling : II / I, II / II (super octave coupling), III / I, III / II, I / P, II / P, III / P
• Playing aids : setter system 10,000 x, roller progr.
• Other: 3 swell kicks, voice press, Zimbelstern

Bells

The bell of the church today consists of four bronze bells cast in 1993 by the Eifeler bell foundry Mark in Brockscheid :

No.	Surname	Diameter (mm)	Mass (kg)	Percussive ( HT - 1 / 16 )	inscription
1	Christ bell	1704	3242	b 0 +3	Praise the Lord, the God of Isarael! For he has visited and redeemed his people. Luke 1, 68
2	Marienkirche bell	1505	2172	c 1 +5	My soul exalts the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. Luke 1, 46, 47
3	Prayer bell	1452	1856	of the 1 +1	Praise be to God who neither rejects my prayer nor turns his goodness away from me. Ps. 66, 20
4th	Sacrament bell	1305	1404	it 1 +4	If someone is in Christ, he is a new creature, the old has passed away, behold, the new has come. 2nd Cor. 5, 17

At times, the six bronze bells of the Paul Gerhardt Church, which was abandoned in 2007, were kept in or on the north side of the church. They were cast in 1962 by the bell foundry Petit & Gebr. Edelbrock in Gescher and each has an inscription taken from one of Paul Gerhardt's songs . The bells have been stored in Bielefeld since 2017 to protect them from adverse effects.

See also

• List of architectural monuments in the Bielefeld-Mitte district

literature

• Johannes Altenberend, Reinhard Vogelsang, Joachim Wibbig (eds.): St. Marien in Bielefeld 1293-1993. History and art of the monastery and the Neustadt church. Publishing house for regional history, Bielefeld 1993, ISBN 3-927085-78-2 .
• Hans Georg Gmelin: The Neustädter Marienkirche to Bielefeld. 2nd edition, Munich / Berlin 1997 ( Große Baudenkmäler , issue 282).
• Alfred Menzel: The Neustädter Marienkirche in Bielefeld as " Simultankirche " . In: Johannes Altenberend, Josef Holtkotte (ed.): St. Jodokus 1511–2011. Contributions to the history of the Franciscan monastery St. Jodokus in Bielefeld. Verlag für Regionalgeschichte, Bielefeld 2011, ISBN 978-3-89534-911-9 , pp. 107–116.
• Götz J. Pfeiffer: The Bielefeld Marienretabel . In: The Bielefeld Marienaltar. The reredos in the Neustädter Marienkirche, Bielefeld, 2001, pp. 33-107.
• Götz J. Pfeiffer: The retable art of the master of the Berswordt retable in Westphalia . In: Albrecht, Uwe / B possibly, Bernd (eds.): The Landkirchen reredos in the Schleswig-Holstein State Museum, Gottorf Castle, Gottorf Castle, Kiel, 2008, pp. 98–112.
• Götz J. Pfeiffer: Painting on the Lower Rhine and in Westphalia around 1400. The master of the Berswordt retable and the change in style of time , Petersberg, 2009, pp. 15–76.

Web links

Commons : Neustädter Marienkirche (Bielefeld)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Web presence of the Protestant Neustädter Marienkirche parish

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Churches in Germany - Sobottapedia. Retrieved November 9, 2017 . 
2. ↑ Reinhard Vogelsang: History of the City of Bielefeld, Volume 1: From the beginnings to the middle of the 19th century. Bielefeld 1980, ISBN 3-88049-128-3 , p. 110.
3. ↑ S. Sudmann: The old Catholic community of Bielefeld during National Socialism and in the post-war period , in: History of the Old Catholic Parish of St. Johannes Münster, Bonn 2014, ISBN 978-3-934610-57-6 , pp. 85–90 .
4. ^ Neue Westfälische , October 1, 2010.
5. ^ Ulrich Althöfer: Architecture and Art in Times of Great Numbers. Church construction and equipment in the church district of Bielefeld in: Matthias Benad, Hans-Walter Schmuhl (Ed.): Aufbruch in die Moderne. The Evangelical Church District Bielefeld from 1817 to 2006. Verlag für Religionsgeschichte, Bielefeld 2006, ISBN 3-89534-642-X , pp. 163–180, here pp. 164–165.
6. ^ Götz J. Pfeiffer: Painting on the Lower Rhine and in Westphalia around 1400. The master of the Berswordt retable and the change in style of the time. Imhof-Verlag, Petersberg 2009. (= studies on international architecture and art history, 73)
7. ↑ Alfred Menzel: The Bielefelder Marienaltar, a retable for the educated in the high choir as a teaching board and sky window. June 2000.
8. ^ Metropolitan Museum of Art: Master of the Berswordt Altar: The Crucifixion .
9. ^ Matzner, Florian / Schulze, Ulrich: Barock in Westfalen. Ardey Publishing House. Münster 1997, p. 48
10. ↑ Information on the organ of the Neustädter Marienkirche
11. ↑ Information about the organ. Accessed on May 8, 2018.
12. ^ Bielefeld, Neustädter Marienkirche, plenum on YouTube .
13. ^ Harald Propach, The Bells of Bielefeld. Voice of the Church. Cultural property and artwork , Bielefeld 2008, pp. 120–122.
14. ^ Harald Propach, The Bells of Bielefeld. Voice of the Church. Cultural property and artwork , Bielefeld 2008, pp. 215–217.
15. ↑ cf. the information on the municipality's website, accessed May 10, 2018.

Coordinates: 52 ° 1 ′ 1.4 ″  N , 8 ° 31 ′ 47.6 ″  E