Nikolaikirche (Rostock)

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Nikolaikirche Rostock
Nikolaikirche 1907, still with roof turret and baroque church tower lantern
Nikolaikirche with city wall (2004)

The Nikolaikirche in the Hanseatic City of Rostock was built from 1230 and is therefore one of the oldest surviving hall churches in the Baltic region. It is one of the three remaining large parish churches in the city and is dedicated to St. Nicholas . Like the Marienkirche and the Petrikirche , it belongs to the Evangelical Lutheran inner city community of Rostock in the Rostock provost in the Mecklenburg parish of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany . The Nikolaikirche is not a parish church and there are no Sunday services. It sees itself as a supra-community, spiritual and cultural center of the city, open to church and other cultural use and is mostly used as a concert church.

Building history

The church was built as a brick church on a field stone base, an extension to the choir and a yoke of the ship to the west with the mighty, square tower followed in the 15th century. The original structure was three-aisled with ribbed vaults on round pillars. The church, consecrated to the patron saint of fishermen and sailors, Saint Nikolai , was first mentioned in 1257. It was consecrated in 1312.

Schwibbogen with a portrait of St. Nicholas

The choir had to be built so high that a street passage , the Schwibbogen , remained underneath it . This passage, above which a portrait of St. Nicholas can be seen, is still preserved today. The sacristy attached to the north of the nave , the tanner's chapel , was first mentioned in 1431. There was also the art-historically significant octagon , which was only demolished during the restoration in the 19th century. The originally slender, Gothic- pointed tower, which towered over the neighboring Petrikirche with its 132 meters , was destroyed by a hurricane in 1703 and in 1706 was given a pyramid roof with a baroque lantern adapted to the style of the time . In 1758 the organ was consecrated and the pulpit was completed.

Well-known pastors of the church were Simon Leupold (1542) and Johannes Aurifaber (1550). The painter David Kindt painted the painting The Adoration of the Shepherds for the Church in 1648 .

During the four-night bombardment of the British Air Force from April 23 to 27, 1942, the tower and nave burned down completely and the vault of the nave but not that of the choir collapsed. The organ and the baroque pulpit, unique in Rostock, as well as grave slabs and epitaphs were destroyed. Some wood carvings (images of St. Nicholas and Christ) and the high altar were saved by relocating. The restored Gothic high altar is now in the north transept of St. Mary's Church . In the nave there are parts of an old wall painting from the beginning of the 15th century. In 1948 the choir was consecrated as an emergency church. Until 1976, the nave and tower were only poorly in place as a ruin secured with a makeshift roof, the restoration of which was long questionable.

Re-zoning with extended use

North view of the church (view from St. Petri ), in the background the water tower
Apartments in the roof of the Nikolaikirche

In 1974 the parishes of St. Petri and St. Nikolai were merged and it was decided to give up the Nikolaikirche as a parish church. A comprehensive reconstruction took place from 1976. Offices and other service rooms for the church administration were built into the tower. An unusual project for the time was the installation of three residential floors in the rebuilt church roof. The roof turret at the eastern end of the nave was not rebuilt. However, the destroyed east gable of the nave was reconstructed.

From 1991 onwards the vaults were installed, heating was installed and limestone slabs were laid in the nave. On July 5th, 1994 the ceremonial reopening of the church hall took place with a performance of the B minor Mass by Johann Sebastian Bach . Today's organ (built in 1971) is a gift from the Philippus community in Rummelsberg, Bavaria . It was consecrated on April 21, 2002. Under the nave there is a crypt with sarcophagi of Casimir Albrecht von Moltke and his wife, Johanna von Wilken, wife of Molteken, above which the Moltke confessional from 1741 used to stand.

organ

A large organ has been available for concerts since 2002 . The instrument was built in 1971 by the organ builder Gerhard Schmid ( Kaufbeuren ) for the Evangelical Philippus Church in Rummelsberg (Bavaria) and came to Rostock in 2002, where it was rebuilt by the builder company. The slider chest instrument has 35 stops on three manuals and a pedal . The Spieltrakturen are mechanically, the Registertrakturen electrically.

I Rückpositiv C – g 3
1. Wooden dacked 8th'
2. Praestant 4 ′
3. Little Pomeranian 2 ′
4th octave 1'
5. Cymbel II-III 1 ⁄ 2 ′
6th Krummhorn 8th'
Tremulant
II Hauptwerk C – g 3
7th Covered pommer 16 ′
8th. Principal 8th'
9. Pointed flute 8th'
10. octave 4 ′
11. Coupling flute 4 ′
12. Chamois fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
13. Schwiegel 2 ′
14th Mixture IV 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
15th Trumpet 8th'
III Swell C – g 3
16. Willow pipe 8th'
17th Reed flute 8th'
18th Swiss pipe 4 ′
19th Principal 2 ′
20th Nasat 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
21st third 1 5 ⁄ 5  ′
22nd Seventh 1 1 ⁄ 7  ′
23. None 8 ⁄ 9 ′
24. Sharp III 1'
25th Schalmey 8th'
Tremulant
Pedal C – f 1
26th Acoustic bass 32 ′
27. Principal 16 ′
28. Sub-bass 16 ′
29 octave 8th'
30th Covered bass 8th'
31. Chorale bass 4 ′
32. Gemshorn 2 ′
33. Horn bass II
34. trombone 16 ′
35. Trumpet 8th'

Bells

Today's bell of the Nikolaikirche is composed as follows:

  • Bell 1 - des ′
    • Inscription: I am with you every day until the end of the world.
  • Bell 2 - es ′
    • Inscription: Christ says: I am the light and the life.
  • Bell 3 - f ′
    • Inscription: I am the resurrection and the life.
  • Bell 4 - as ′
    • Inscription: I am the Christmas stick, you are the vines.

All inscriptions are made by Ev.- Luth. St. Nikolai parish in Rostock added in 1962 . The bells were cast by the Schilling & Lattermann bell foundry in Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz , a company that cooperates with the bell foundry in Apolda . With the discontinuation of services in the Nikolaikirche, the bells lost their original function and are only rarely rung, for example at Christmas, Easter and at the turn of the year. All bells are rung by hand.

Bell scratch drawings

A bell of the Nikolaikirche, cast in 1394 and destroyed in World War II , had rare, art-historically significant carved bell drawings , which are honored in a work by the art historian Ingrid Schulze in a separate chapter.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Arno Krause: Rostock. In: Götz Eckardt (ed.): Fates of German architectural monuments in the Second World War. Volume 1, Henschel-Verlag, Berlin 1978, pp. 64-65.
  2. ↑ Moltkescher confessional | Image index of art & architecture - Image index of art & architecture - Homepage Image index. Retrieved June 8, 2018 .
  3. ↑ More information on the concert organ of the Nikolaikirche ( Memento from March 5th, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ^ Ingrid Schulze: Incised drawings by lay hands - drawings by medieval sculptors and painters? Figural bell scratch drawings from the late 13th century to around 1500 in central and northern Germany. Engelsdorfer Verlag, Leipzig 2006, ISBN 3-939404-95-0 , p. 74ff, p. 87f.

Web links

Commons : Nikolaikirche  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 54 ° 5 ′ 16.1 ″  N , 12 ° 8 ′ 47.5 ″  E