St-Mathieu (Colmar)
St-Mathieu is a former abbey church and today parish church of the Evangelical Lutheran Protestant Church of the Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine in Colmar . It is under monument protection as a monument historique .
history
The Franciscans settled in Colmar in the first half of the 13th century . Between 1292 and 1340 a church was built instead of a small prayer room. In 1491 it was partially renewed and rebuilt.
The decline of the monastery began in 1541 when the plague broke out and many monks died. In 1575 the Reformation prevailed in Colmar and the church became Protestant. It was during this time that it was first named after the Evangelist Matthew. In 1627 the church and monastery were given to the Jesuits. But in 1632 the Swedes conquered the city under the leadership of Gustaf Horn . The Jesuits were driven out and the church became Protestant again. In 1715 the church became a simultaneous church following an order from the French king: from then on, the choir was used by the town's Protestant community and the nave was used by the Catholic residents of the neighboring hospital. The triumphal arch was walled up. During the revolution, the building was secularized and served as a military depot.
In 1937 the city built a new hospital in the west. University institutions moved into the former convent building. The choir was preserved as a Protestant church until the end of the Second World War, the ship was empty. After the war ended, the Protestants took over the church again and renamed it after Matthew. The wall between the choir and the nave was only demolished in 1987. The former monastery buildings are no longer preserved. They were demolished during the 20th century. Between 1991 and 1997 the church was extensively renovated.
architecture
St-Mathieu was built as a Gothic basilica with one aisle in the north and two aisles in the south. However, the outer aisle was demolished and the arcades walled up. All ships are covered by flat wooden beam ceilings. The spaces between the ceiling in the central nave were painted in the 17th century with black leaf tendrils and heads. In the 18th century a lower ceiling was put in, which was removed again during restoration work in the 1980s. The central and side aisles are separated by pointed arches supported by octagonal pillars. In the side wall of the north aisle there are round-arched niches that are connected by a cornice. Busts and epitaphs adorn them.
The windows of the upper cladding continue as blind windows in the high walls of the central nave. The portals of the church are designed as simple profiled pointed arches without decorations.
The roughly 30-meter-long choir with four bays and ⅝-end can be recognized from the outside through the buttresses and has a somewhat steeper and higher gable roof than the 43-meter-long nave with six bays. While a hexagonal ridge turret (erected in 1715) with a curved hood sits on the choir, the nave has a square rider with a pyramid roof (erected in 1588). A Gothic washbasin has been preserved in the choir . A rood screen with pointed arches separates the nave and the choir. Its vaults are painted with a floral pattern.
In 1603 a wooden gallery was built in the south aisle. The organ originally stood on the rood screen, but was moved to the west gallery in 1862.
Furnishing
A large part of the Gothic church furnishings are now in the Unterlinden Museum . In 1708/09, wealthy citizens of the city donated 15 paintings by Jean-Baptiste Wülcken with scenes from the Old and New Testament. These hang on the parapet of the gallery in the nave.
The church windows come from different epochs. Only two of the original windows from the Middle Ages have survived. They show scenes of a crucifixion. Below the rood screen is a composition from the 14th century, above it a scene that was created around 1470 and made by Peter Hemmel von Andlau . The modern church windows show Luther in a round window and the Reformers with Christ in a pointed arch window.
The organ and organ prospectus were created by Andreas Silbermann in 1731/32 . The carvings are by Anton Ketterer. In 1861 Joseph Stiehr moved the instrument from the rood screen to the west gallery and changed it slightly. The organ was changed several times in the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1989 it was decided to restore the original condition. The organ gallery in the central nave was raised to the level of its original location on the rood screen and the instrument was restored to its condition in 1862.
literature
- Walter Hotz : Handbook of the art monuments in Alsace and Lorraine . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 1973, p. 35f
- Dominique Toursel-Harster, Jean-Pierre Beck, Guy Bronner: Alsace. Dictionnaire des monuments historiques. La Nuée Bleue, Strasbourg 1995, p. 82f
Web links
- St-Mathieu on the website of the Parish of Colmar (French)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Entry no. PA00085367 in the Base Mérimée of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
- ↑ Entry No. PM68000065 in the Base Palissy of the French Ministry of Culture (French)
- ↑ The organ of St-Mathieu ( Memento of the original of March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , A la découverte de l'Orgue, Orgues d'Alsace (French)
Coordinates: 48 ° 4 ′ 37.9 ″ N , 7 ° 21 ′ 38.2 ″ E