St. Laurentii Church (Calbe)

St. Laurentii is a Protestant church from the 10th century in Calbe (Saale) .

geography

The church is located between the grounds of the house of the child day care center and the first school in the Bernburg suburb in a park that was once a cemetery. Right at the northern entrance is a Luther memorial stone , which was erected for the 400th anniversary of the Reformation in 1917. The churchyard of the Laurentii Church is now called the Old Cemetery , although it is no longer used as such and all graves have been leveled. His time was between 1551 and 1844.

Because of the lack of space in the city cemetery (churchyard near the Stephani church), caused by the high mortality rate during the plague waves , a new churchyard had to be found. The city council bought the site with the permission of the castle captain Hyronimus von Breitenbach, east of the existing suburban cemetery at the St. Laurentii church. The two houses standing there were demolished, the three existing gardens were converted and the newly created cemetery grounds were surrounded by a high wall.

history

The St. Laurentii Church, popularly Lorenz Church called, was probably founded in the 10th century, it belonged but to that category of triumph and Thank churches that Otto I after his historic victory at the Battle of Lechfeld via Hungary built. On the day of the battle, August 10, 955 , which is also the day of St. Lawrence , Otto had vowed to erect churches in honor of this saint if he were to win against the Hungarians. It is quite certain that the church in the Bernburger Vorstadt also belongs in this series.

St. Laurentii Church from the south-east

Like the Calbian town church , the St. Laurentii Church was first built of wood. The first Romanesque sandstone Laurentius Church was probably built in the 12th century . It is possible that the round apse that still exists dates from this period. The simple church has remained single-nave to this day. A church tower that no longer exists was also there. The original Romanesque sandstone church was, as construction seams still show today, about half the size of the present one and a little lower, which can also be clearly seen on the round apse. Experts assumed that the Laurentius suburban church was built around the same time as that of the Romanesque Stephanus church in the city center. However, the 12th century was the latest date for these cultural historians. So it can be assumed that the oldest (eastern parts) of the church date from the 11th or 12th century.

When this church was rebuilt in the Gothic style is not certain. Its two bells at least date from the late Gothic period. The larger of the two bears the year 1411 and bears the inscription in Gothic capitals (capital letters): "Consolor viva, fleo mortua, pello nociva" (I comfort the living, I weep the dead, I drive away the harmful). Mary is depicted on one side and Jesus as a vineyard worker on the other. The smaller bell, probably from the late 15th century to arise, bears in small letters (lower case) a similar inscription: "Defunctos plango, vivos voco, Fulgura frango" (The dead I complain, the living I call, the flashes I break). It shows the images of a cross and a medallion with an angel's head and wings.

The St. Laurentii Church was also badly damaged in the Thirty Years' War . Under Prussian rule everything was done not only to repair the war damage, but to make everything even more important and advantageous. Johann Heinrich Havecker reported that His Royal Majesty of Prussia, by special grace, granted a collect not only in the whole Hertzogthum Magdeburg, but also in the Principality of Halberstadt to renovate and expand the Laurentii Church. The renovation work on the church began around 1699 . They dragged on until around 1711 . As can be seen from the old building documents, the church was expanded to the east and west. During this period at the beginning of the 18th century , the Romanesque image of the church was removed. The tower was dismantled and replaced with a small baroque half-timbered structure - turrets that held the bells, and the Romanesque round arches were converted into Gothic spiers. The expansion and modification of the St. Laurentii Church, begun under Friedrich I and completed under Friedrich Wilhelm I , was carried out, among other things, because the population of the suburbs had increased by around 50 percent compared to the pre-war level half a century after the devastating war. The Nicolai Fischer Brotherhood had after the Hohendorfer St. Nicolai Church had become desolate, to the end of its existence in 1945 an altar included in the Lorenz Church and was the church prayer.

When, after the establishment of the empire in Calbe in 1871, the activities of the Beautification Association made things different and more beautiful, the old church began to be redesigned in a more stylish way. In 1876 new chairs were installed, a year later the slug panes in the windows were removed and the inside replaced with a greenish paint on the wall. A new organ was inaugurated in August 1876 for a price of 3300 Reichsmarks donated by the manufacturer Hans Nicolai . On the outside, the lime plaster was removed, the windows and the main portal were again provided with Romanesque arches and coupled windows in the lower part were broken in again. 1964 / 65 the overall picture of the interior was even more simplified, we removed the confining galleries and the apse niche occluding Altar, so that, together with the flat wooden ceiling was built, an inner space of Roman shaping.

The pastor of the town church, Magister Hävecker, was a local patriot and pastor primarius in Calbe and the surrounding area of the opinion that the St. Laurentii Church was a subsidiary church (branch) of the St. Stephen's Church. Thus, the city's magistrate would have had the right to appoint Lorenz pastors. After all, according to Hävecker, the suburban pastors were called subdeacons . In his imaginative way, Hävecker even derived this right from a supposed ranking of the two saints. Hertel proved convincingly that there was never a patronage right of the St. Stepheni over the St. Laurentii Church, neither before nor after the Reformation . As from one in the Magdeburg history sheets XXXI. (P. 83) from the document dated March 20, 1439 , the Lorenz Church already had its own pastor in the Middle Ages, who was probably subordinate to the archdeacon (1st deputy of the bishop) of the excommunication (district) Calbe and thus ultimately to the Archbishop of Magdeburg.

Stick epitaph

The significant Renaissance - Epitaph for Lorenz Stock (Mayor 1559-1561) received a place at the St. Laurentii Church next to the sacristy . The baroque relief of God the Father , which has been above the sacristy door since the general renovation of the church in 1890, was placed above it. The epitaph consists of two parts. The lower picture, framed by columns, shows Christ on the cross. Two women kneel to the right of the cross, five men and a child to the left. Underneath the inscription: The merciful and merciless Lorentz Stock Burgemeister rut in Got blissfully fallen asleep on July 25th Anno 1571, The merciful and virtuous Anna Lorentzin Lorentz Stock blessed widow died blissfully in God. The upper picture of the epitaph, also framed by columns, shows the risen Christ with the flag of the cross fighting death and the devil . According to the world of thought of the 16th century , the Messiah Landsknechte stand and lie by the side. Below is the quote from the Bible ( Job XIX., 25-27.):

“I know that my Redeemer lives and afterwards he will wake me up from the earth and will be surrounded with this my skin and will see God in my flesh. I will see the same and my eyes will see him and no stranger. "

During the clean-up work of the Calbe Beautification Association under the patronage of the entrepreneur Hans Nicolai at the end of the 19th century, the tombstones and epitaphs were placed on the western cemetery wall and on the north side of the church. In 1877 the acacias from the 18th century had been cleared and linden trees were planted for them.

Web links

Commons : St. Laurentii Church (Calbe) - Collection of images, videos and audio files

51.900458333333 11.772619444444Coordinates: 51 ° 54 ′ 1.6 ″ N , 11 ° 46 ′ 21.4 ″ E