St. John's Church (Petersdorf on Fehmarn)

St. Johannis Church in Petersdorf on Fehmarn

The St. Johannis Church is the Evangelical Lutheran parish church of the Westerkirchspiel on Fehmarn .

history

Sacraments Tower

The St. John's Church in Petersdorf was built in the first third of the 13th century as a two-aisled church in the late Romanesque style. Around 1300 it was to be extended to a four-aisled church. The south aisle and a Gothic choir room were realized .

“The very ancient church fell into a most barbaric restoration in 1856”. Originally, the inside of the church, like the Nikolaikirche in Burg and Petrikirche von Landkirchen, was plastered white on the inside.

description

Female figure from the main altar

The church tower, which was renovated in 1567, is the highest in Fehmarn at over 60 meters high. Visible from afar, it still serves as a landmark for seafarers today . The churchyard around the church is surrounded by a ring of linden trees - 64 trees that were meant to commemorate the German-Danish War of 1864.

Furnishing

The wealth of the Fehmarn farmers is evident in the rich furnishings and numerous epitaphs .

The oldest piece of equipment is the font made of Gotland limestone from the time the church was built. Today it is located in a kind of baptistery in the south aisle, from which there is no view of the altar. An octagonal baptismal lid from 1779, crowned by a blessing Christ, hangs above the baptismal font. The donors, the treasurer Hans Lafrentz and his wife Anna nee. Mackeprang, were among the leading families in the parish . They had the lid made in Zealand along with an accompanying grid that is no longer in existence today. The inscription also says that the couple also had the pulpit and altar renovated.

The main altar is a retable that is dated to the last decade of the 14th century and is one of the oldest carved altars in northern Germany. In the upper row, the twelve apostles surround Mary in a halo. The bottom row consists of 13 busts of female saints. The original paintings on the outside of the panels were awkwardly repainted in 1702. The altar is very similar to the Grabower Altar in the Hamburger Kunsthalle . It may also come from Master Bertram's workshop . In 1772 the medieval altar was replaced by a baroque altar donated by Hans Lafrentz.

In the choir is the largest preserved wooden sacrament house in northern Germany, 8.7 m after the one in Doberan Monastery . It is dated after 1460.

A rare late Gothic depiction is the Christ Child sitting on a pillow under a canopy. The triumphal cross group designed in "ascetic austere" is dated to the end of the 15th century.

The pulpit dates from the Reformation and has been redesigned several times.

The oldest of the epitaphs is that of Jürgen Rauert, who died in 1633 at the age of 49. The picture in a Renaissance frame is a copy after a copper engraving of the Entombment of Christ by Hans von Aachen . Another epitaph is designed according to the same model.

literature

Richard Haupt: The architectural and art monuments of the province of Schleswig-Holstein II . Kiel 1888, pp. 88-96.
Dehio manual: Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein . 1971, pp. 508-510.
Hans Wentzel: The baptismal font of Beno Korp and some related sculptures in Sweden and Northern Germany . Fornvännen 1938, pp. 129–153 (pdf, accessed on August 5, 2019)