St. Francis Church (Riga)

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St. Francis Church

The St. Francis Church (Latvian Sveta Franciska Romas Katoļu baznīca ) is a Roman Catholic church in the Katoļu iela 16 in Riga District Moscow suburb , Latvia .

It was built in neo-Gothic style and inaugurated in 1890. The church is surrounded by a small park ( Miera dārzs , lit. "Garden of Peace"), in which the buildings of the parish and a seminary are located.

Building

Conradin Kreutzer's grave in the cemetery at the St. Francis Church in Riga. The Gazebo (1868)

The previous building, St. Franziskus Church, was a Catholic prayer house for burials of the Roman Catholic community. On the initiative of Francisks Afanasovičs (d. 1923), the provost of the Mater Dolorosa community responsible for the prayer house (Sāpju Dievmates draudze), it was decided in 1888 to build a new church. The Polytechnic Institute in Riga approved the design for the church by Afanasovičs himself and entrusted the architecture student Florian von Viganovsky with the implementation of the construction project. On September 24, 1889, the foundation stone was laid and the church was consecrated to St. Francis . The roof was completed in 1890. One year later the twin towers were built (height: 58.4 m), the facade was designed and another year later a modern central heating system went into operation. The 43.35 m long and 22.5 m wide church is made of red brick, yellow bricks were used for window and door frames and the cornices. The towers and roof are covered with zinc sheet.

In the 1930s a wall was built around the church, which now surrounds the area of ​​the former cemetery. In the 1960s the church was restored, based on the state of 1900. The drawings of the prototypes were modeled on the basilica of Francis of Assisi in Italy.

The grave of the composer Conradin Kreutzer is in the churchyard . A bas-relief with the portrait of the composer was later worked into the natural stone that bears the simple metal cross.

literature

  • Friedrich Pilzer: A lonely grave in the north. Conradin Kreutzer's resting place in the cemetery in Riga . In: The Gazebo . Issue 49, 1868, pp. 773-775 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).

Web links

Coordinates: 56 ° 56 ′ 39.7 ″  N , 24 ° 8 ′ 12.7 ″  E