St-Jean-Berchmans (Brussels)
St-Jean-Berchmans (Dutch Sint Jan Berchmans , German St. Johannes Berchmans ) is a Roman Catholic rectorate church in Etterbeek in the Brussels-Capital Region . It was laid out from 1908 to 1912 as part of the Jesuit College St Michel in neo-Romanesque style and is sponsored by the Jesuit Order .
history
In 1908, three years after the Brussels Jesuit College was relocated to today's Boulevard Saint-Michel / Sint-Michielslaan in Etterbeek , the then nuncio in Belgium Giovanni Tacci Porcelli (1863–1928) laid the foundation stone for the church, which was designed by the Brussels architect Joseph Prémont was built in the basilical scheme. Prémont, on whose design several historicist houses in Brussels can be traced back, in his planning based on the basic forms of the Rhenish Romanesque. On July 9, 1912, the church was consecrated by the then Bishop of Galle ( Sri Lanka ), Jozef van Reeth SJ (1843–1923), and placed under the patronage of the Dutch Jesuit Johannes Berchmans, who was canonized in 1888 .
As the spiritual, social and architectural center of the largely symmetrical college, which in its building design followed the ideal-typical forms of Romanesque monastery complexes, the church was initially in the service of school operations and its focus on religious education. At the same time, the church building set a striking urban accent in an area outside the gates of Brussels that was still little developed at the time .
architecture
The visitor enters the facility via the southern face facing the Boulevard Saint-Michel / Sint-Michielslaan , whose double-towered facade made of gray sandstone is modeled on the Sint Servaas church in Maastricht . With its central counter-choir and flanking entrance portals, it forms the vanishing point of Rue des Bollandistes (see Bollandists ). In the central axis, a round arch niche carries the gold-painted monumental sculpture of the Archangel Michael, the patron of the college.
The plan of the church follows the shape of a Latin cross; the nave has three aisles . In the three-storey central nave , which is carried out upwards by a gallery made of triforium arches and an upper cladding made of round-arched windows, is accentuated by six monumental sculptures depicting saints of the Jesuit order ; they are works by the Belgian sculptors Oscar Sinia (1877–1956) and C. Van de Cappele. Sixteen stained glass windows, works from the Ghent workshop of Camille Ganton-Defoin (1872-1946), depict scenes from the Gospel , which the founder of the Jesuit order Ignatius of Loyola describes in his spiritual exercises. A glass window work on the Trinity ( mercy seat ) in the end of the choir of the central nave .
The original furnishings (including a high altar based on Prémont's designs) were partially removed as a result of the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council . What has been preserved, however, is the romantic church organ , which was built in the years 1909–1910 by the Brussels workshop of Jean-Emile Kerkhoff (1859–1921) and inaugurated on April 6, 1910 with a concert by Charles-Marie Widor (36 stops ; three manuals and pedal ; partly pneumatic, partly mechanical action ).
literature
- Raymont Denayer: Architect Joseph Premont en de grote oorlog. , In: Zoniën . 23 (1999), pp. 161-166.
Individual evidence
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 50 ′ 5 ″ N , 4 ° 24 ′ 26 ″ E