St. Petri Church (Wolgast)
The St. Petri Church Wolgast is a Protestant church consecrated to the Apostle Peter in the city of Wolgast in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . It was built until 1350 and was destroyed and rebuilt several times as a result of the consequences of war and storms. Therefore, it has both Gothic and Baroque architectural features . In the crypt of the Dukes of Pommern-Wolgast inside the church are the nine sarcophagi of relatives of the griffin dukes and the remains of three small children in a collective coffin. Since 2012 the parish of St. Petri zu Wolgast has belonged to the Demmin provost in the Pomeranian Evangelical Church District of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany .
location
The building stands on the highest point in the historic city center. It is accessed from the street Am Kirchplatz , which runs in a ring around the sacred building . There is a connection to the federal highway 111 to the south . The place is not fenced .
history
The St. Petri Church in Wolgast goes back to the Christianization journey of Bishop Otto von Bamberg in 1128, who had a pagan temple of the Slavic god Jarovite destroyed in the city and presumably consecrated a church on the same site . The church, which existed in the 21st century, was built in the Gothic style between 1280 and 1350 as a successor to the church consecrated by Otto von Bamberg. The craftsmen use a pointed arched portal with bulge profiles from a previous building from the early 13th century . It is located in the south wall of the south tower side hall. Further construction work began in the second half of the 14th century and was probably completed around 1415 with the funeral of Wartislaw VIII . In the 15th century, the dukes expanded the building with several chapels to form a three-aisled basilica . The building is thus one of the oldest structures in the city of Wolgast in the 21st century, although it was largely destroyed by fires in 1512 and 1628 and rebuilt.
The coffins of seven members of the last three generations of the Pomeranian-Wolgast ducal family are located in tin sarcophagi in the church's crypt, which was set up between 1560 and 1587 . The crypt was set up as a burial place for Duke Philip I , who died in 1560 , and his wife Maria of Saxony and their daughter Amelia were also buried there. The funerals of Ernst Ludwig , his wife Sophia Hedwig von Braunschweig and their daughter Hedwig Maria followed. The previous two older graves are presumed to be under the choir. In 1688 the tomb was forcibly opened and looted by grave robbers. The coffins and their contents were very badly damaged. There is a log in the church archive with a list of all stolen jewelry and objects. The perpetrators have been identified, including the church sexton, but neither they nor their booty have been found. In 1729 and 1829 the crypt was opened and inspected by commissions, but then walled up again. In 1929 the crypt entrance was provided with a reclining door and the crypt was made accessible to the public with restrictions.
When the city of Wolgast burned down in 1713 by Russian troops in the Great Northern War and when a fire triggered by lightning in 1920, the building and interior were largely destroyed, but in both cases they were rebuilt. Since the reconstruction after the fire of 1713, baroque style elements have shaped the architectural image of the church. The work dragged on over several years, during which from 1716 to 1728 the vaults were renewed and the tower was preserved with an octagonal tower.
From 1820 until his death in 1837, Karl Heller worked as archdeacon of the St. Petri congregation, who in 1829 published the first comprehensive chronicle of the city of Wolgast.
After the fire of 1920, the collapsed baroque was spire replaced by the up to the present existing octagonal tent roof. The viewing platform in the tower can be reached via 184 steps.
In 1993, a comprehensive renovation of the church building began at a cost of 4 million euros (as of 2010). From 1998 to 2000, damage mapping and an assessment of the crypt and especially the coffins were carried out by the dental technician Birgit Wachholz and master goldsmith Detlef Kadagies under the guidance of the metal restorer Wolfgang Hofmann, who also carried out the restoration of the coffins. The multi-year reconstruction of the crypt and the coffins of the Pomeranian dukes, completed in 2007, was awarded a prize by the European Union for cultural heritage in the conservation category in 2010 . Due to the historical relevance of the duke's crypt, the St. Petri Church was recognized as a “monument of national standing” in early May 2011.
Building description
Church building
The St. Petri Church is a three-aisled basilica with a length of four bays , to which the polygonal ambulatory choir adjoins directly. There is also a sacristy with a baptistery in the north and the Petri chapel in the south of the building, as well as the west tower with side halls. The entire structure was built predominantly from reddish brick . The facades are not plastered.
The choir has a five-eighth closing and is strongly drawn in. The surfaces are dominated by large and high, multi-part pointed arch windows , the sides are stabilized by stepped buttresses . The sides of the nave are largely symmetrical: a high aisle with also pointed arched windows and buttresses, above it a pressed upper balcony with a frieze of tracery . On the north side are the north and the Greifenkapelle.
The church portal in the tower is adorned with a five-tiered wall .
tower
The approximately 50 meter high west tower (height of the viewing gallery 40 meters) has an octagonal floor plan that rests on a mighty square substructure. Tower chapels are installed here, which the builders combined to form a uniform facade. In each of them they built a pointed arch window that characterizes the ships behind. The middle window is clearly raised. It extends into the upper tower floors, which are decorated with rich panels . There are three smaller panels on each side of the western facade and two in the middle. They are complemented by six panels on the upper floor, of which a sound arcade has been integrated into the two middle ones . Above that follows the tower end with a baroque tower, which can be reached through an octagonal stair tower on the northwest corner. To the south, the Petri Chapel (south chapel) was integrated into the building with a round stair tower. The tower contains a kestrel box and a belfry (see bells ). - There is a charge to climb the tower. To prevent falls from the tower, the safety precautions were improved in summer 2018.
Equipment and use
Interior design and church jewelry
The interior is described as "hall-like" in the Dehio manual . This is justified with the wide yoke steps of the high central nave in connection with the wide side aisle. The vaults rest on octagonal pillars, which were executed with flat fluted corners and without transoms . They lead into the vaginal arches and thus reinforce the hall-like impression.
In the center of the sanctuary there is a brick altar , above it a crucifix, probably from the 16th century, which the parish received in 1959 as a gift from the parish of St. Marien in Stralsund . The assistant figures are in the Stralsund Museum . The crucifix is accompanied by two candlesticks from 1749 donated to the church by four sailors rescued from distress at sea. It replaces a baroque high altar from 1739, which was destroyed in the fire on April 9, 1920. Behind it there is an altar window with the title The sinking Peter from 1929. To the southwest in front of the altar there is a baptismal angel made of zinc , which was cast in 1848 . The Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen previously created the original for Copenhagen Cathedral . In the south-eastern part of the church there is another copy of a work by Thorvaldsen with the figure of Jesus Christ . The Counselor W. Homeyer donated them. The copy was made in 1889 in the studio of the Michaeli brothers in Berlin and stands on a base that was made in the Kessel & Röhl stone grinder in Wolgast. Opposite is a crucifix carved by Max Uecker . To the northwest of the crypt stands the wooden pulpit from 1710 on a buttress on a fluted foot. The pulpit, made of dark wood, is adorned with parapets supported by twisted columns; the lectern with richly carved work was made in 1645. A heptagonal sound cover decorated with acanthus closes the basket.
To the east of the pulpit hangs on the following octagonal pillar an epitaph for Philip I, which was cast from brass by Wolf Hillger in Freiberg in 1560 . It has a retable-like structure and an inscription panel with the Pomeranian coat of arms , which are decorated and framed by Renaissance vegetal ornaments and figurative grotesques. It is a foundation of Philip's five sons and has survived the many fires in the church. The inscriptions are framed in the Italian style. There are also two essays with the baby Jesus and a saucer with putti . In the main field, the death of the father is lamented in a Latin elegy .
The interior of the church is decorated with various glass and vault paintings. Also on display are a coat of arms stone from the Pomeranian Dukes' castle in Wolgast, as well as a rare Slavic stone image from the 12th century with a depiction of the Slavic god Jarovite carved into the stone . A coat of arms of the Pomeranian dukes hangs on the northern part of the tower. The coat of arms can also be found on the entrance door to the crypt. Starting from the top left, the nine fields show: Duchy of Pomerania-Stettin , Duchy of Pomerania , Duchy of Kassuben, Duchy of Wenden, Principality of Rügen , Rule of Usedom, Rule of Neuenkamp-Barth, County of Gützkow and the Duchy of Wolgast.
South of the West Portal hang a copper engraving , of Gustav II. Adolf of Sweden shows, a gift from the Swedish government and next to it an oil painting depicting the transferral of his body from Wolgast to Sweden. On the opposite pillar - and thus under the organ gallery - there is the painting Castle Ruins from 1790 by Alex Schöngrün , to the right of it the coat of arms of the city of Wolgast. Another painting by Schöngrün, the burning church from 1920 hangs on the buttress south of the baptismal font. In the north-western area of the nave, the sword of the last Duke Philipp Julius hangs in a showcase, followed by a weather vane from 1731 and a sandstone coffin by von Wakenitz from 1757. The coffin was discovered in 1938 during excavations in the aisle of the church.
The anchors in the nave quote texts from the Bible. On the front of the first anchor it says: “You will receive the power of the Holy Spirit, which will come upon you.” ( Acts 1 EU ), on the back “I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and Your God ”( Jn 20.17 EU ). The following are quotations: “Death is swallowed up in victory, death where is your sting, hell where is your victory?” ( 1 Cor 15.55 EU ) or “I am the resurrection and the life who believes in me , will live whether he dies soon ”( Jn 11.25 EU ) on the second anchor. The third component reads: “The blood of Jesus makes us free from all sins” ( Jn 1,7 EU ) and “The punishment rests on him so that we may have peace and through his wounds we are healed” ( Isa 53,5 EU ). The fourth anchor quotes on the front: “Glory to God in the highest and peace on earth and a pleasure to men” ( Lk 2.14 EU ) and on the back: “See, I proclaim great joy to you, because it is to you today the Savior was born! ”( Lk 2.11 EU ).
The church tower, accessible via a spiral staircase, is a popular tourist destination in Wolgast due to its location in the city center and the view over the city. The number of visitors is around 60,000 per year. Due to its size and acoustics , the church is often used for choir and orchestral performances, for example at the annual WOLGASTER SUMMER MUSICS and as part of the Usedom Music Festival .
Crypt of the Dukes of Pomerania-Wolgast
The crypt was built in two phases: around 1500 and 1587. It was built roughly to the central axis of the church in front of the high altar, in order to emphasize the special importance of the people buried there according to the understanding then valid. The front part is spanned by a barrel vault around 1.75 meters high and around 1.70 meters wide ; In the back room, the craftsmen erected a segment-arched barrel. It is around 14 meters long including the entrance. The crypt chamber is 4.60 meters wide and 4.40 meters long. The room was given a floor made of bricks, on which benches were built in an east-west direction. Then the tin coffins were placed. To the north is a vessel with the remains of three children who were found in the sarcophagi when they were recovered. To the right of it rest Princess Am (a) elia, daughter Philip I and Maria von Sachsen (1547-1580), followed by Princess Hedwig-Maria (daughter Ernst-Ludwigs and Sophia-Hedwig, 1579-1606), Duchess Sophia Hedwig von Braunschweig (1581–1631) and finally two more children's coffins. Friedrich Casimir and Katharina Eleonore, the children of General Friedrich VI, rest there . from Baden-Durchlach. He was stationed in the Wolgast area during the Thirty Years' War.
It turned out to be problematic that the crypt had two ventilation openings at the same level, which prevented natural air circulation. Moisture accumulated and destroyed the building structure and the coffins. Since a glass door was installed in 1996, dehumidification has been carried out continuously, reducing the air humidity from 98% to around 65%. The crypt of the Pomeranian dukes has been open to the public again since 2007.
Griffin Chapel
The Greifenkapelle is located on the north wall of the nave in front of the transition to the choir. It has a diamond-shaped floor plan and can be entered from the south through an ogival portal. On the eastern wall in the northern area are the coffins of Philip I and his wife Maria von Sachsen, which were restored between 1995 and 2007, and those of Duke Ernst Ludwig and the last griffin duke Philipp Julius to the south. Her grave was rebuilt in 2007.
North chapel
On the northern wall there is an altar painting that the German painter Carl Joseph Begas created in 1842. It shows Christ on the Mount of Olives . It hangs in a dark wooden tower flanked by two columns, on the base of which a pelican is depicted. It was originally the predella of the high altar. To the right of this is a painting by Axel Schöngrün showing the brig Jupiter . On the east wall hang two epitaphs and a wooden crucifix ; another on the west wall. To the east of the north chapel there is another picture by Schöngrün entitled Landskron Castle Ruins near Anklam.
South chapel
After the fire in 1920, the parish separated the southern chapel from the side aisle and prepared it for the winter or short service. It can be entered from the north through an ogival portal. In the upper segment arc a psalm is quoted: “Go to his / her / his gates with thanks, / to his courts with praise” ( Ps 100.4 EU ). On the inside page is quoted from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians . Between tendrils framed by angels it says: “God / was in Chirsto and / reconciled the world with him / himself / and did not attribute their sins to them and / has established the word of reconciliation among us” ( 2 Cor 5:19 EU ).
The painting was done by the Berlin painter Max Kutschmann together with the Wolgast artist Loius Zillmann. Both used the work Flora von Neuvorpommern and the islands of Rügen and Usedom by the Wolgast botanist Theodor Marsson, published in 1869, and painted the plants on the walls that Marsson had drawn. The painting was painted over in 1950 but exposed again in 2005.
Additional fittings include two chandeliers made of brass in 1710 and 1754 .
organ
The organ currently in use was built in 1988 by the organ building company Sauer from Frankfurt (Oder) . It is also used for concerts from June to September as part of the Wolgast Summer Music . The purely mechanical instrument with around 1400 pipes has 22 registers made up of two manuals and a pedal .
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P.
Bells
There are hardly any records of the originally installed bell. One of the few documents describes a bell from 1516 that was destroyed in the fire of 1713. Before the fire in 1920 there were three bells. Two of them had to be given in during the First World War as part of a metal donation by the German people . The third crashed in the fire and is only present in fragments. In the following years the parish bought three new bells. The smallest bell with a weight of 1050 kg was cast in 1926 and had the strike tone e , another from 1925 had the strike tone C sharp and weighed 2000 kg, followed by the largest bell with 3600 kg from 1932 and the strike tone a . Two of them were also melted down during World War II . After the end of the war, the parish church council ordered a new bell from the in 1958, which was cast by the iron bell foundry in Morgenröthe-Rautenkranz in autumn 1962 . They had the beats c sharp , e and f sharp . The remaining bell was given in payment and ended up in the St. Nikolai Church in Stralsund .
Since cracks appeared in the yoke at the beginning of the 21st century, the bells had to be broken. In 2012 the municipality decided to buy new bells. She acquired four bronze bells from the Paul Gerhardt Church in Kassel (with the chimes f, g, a and b), which were no longer used there due to their weight and the state of construction of the church tower and had been replaced by a lighter cymbal peal . These bells arrived in Wolgast at the end of November 2012. In 2016, the Petri community had the Bachert bell foundry in Karlsruhe produce a fifth bell d-keynote. The five-part bell was ceremoniously put into use on Christmas Eve 2017.
Wolgast Dance of Death
The Wolgaster dance of death is a dance of death made around 1700 by the painter and shipowner Caspar Siegmund Köppe. Adrian Dietrich Brentschneider is considered to be the author of the corresponding two-line verses. The 25 panel paintings were originally in the cemetery chapel used Wolgaster Gertrudenkapelle . During a renovation in 1868, they were first placed in the St. Jürgen Chapel , then in the St. Petri Church. All pictures were saved during the fire in 1920, but one “fell into the hands of others” and was lost.
The pictures are a free copy of the woodcut series Pictures of Death by Hans Holbein the Younger published in 1538 . Köppe is said to have painted them after he lost his wife and children to an epidemic. In contrast to late medieval depictions, God recedes as Lord of life and death. Only the first picture shows the Fall , the last the Last Judgment . The lost penultimate shows the risen Christ with the verse "Christ's death and resurrection is the restoration of life". "Overall, death appears as an independent power that is in league with God and is part of God's omnipotence , which here appears gloomy and mute."
The large-format paintings are among the few surviving monumental dance of death representations in northern Germany. They have been gradually renovated since 2008.
Votive ships
In addition to the candlesticks already mentioned, the parish also received other donations from maritime circles, including four votive ships . These are replicas of Wolgast ships, including the full-rig Leopold , the schooner Minna and the barque Camilla von Wolgast . They probably came to the church as a gift in the second half of the 19th century. However, they were not initially installed there, as the interior of the nave was richly furnished with art treasures. However, these were almost completely destroyed in the fire in 1920. In 1921, the parish therefore had three ship models attached to the walls in wooden consoles, but the origin was initially unclear. Pastor Klett carried out extensive research together with the sexton Rickert in 1942. They led to the realization that in 1943 the essential data for the full ship and schooner were plotted on the church wall.
Library
Petrikirche had an extensive library, including works from the library of Professor Enwaldus Klene from Greifswald , which had come to Wolgast in 1535 via the library of the Eldena monastery . The library of the Jasenitz monastery, which was dissolved during the Reformation, was also kept here. The St. Petri Library was transferred to the Greifswald University Library in 1830/31 . Of the 938 volumes taken over at that time, 554 volumes are still available after being lost due to outsourcing during the Second World War.
Immediately afterwards, Karl Christian Heller began building a new library; Essentially through donations, by his death in 1837 it had already regained 700 books and writings listed in a catalog. In the 2010s, the collection again comprised 1489 titles.
literature
- Norbert Buske: The Petrikirche in Wolgast - pictures of church history. and Regina Scherping: The burials of the Wolgast dukes in the Church of St. Petri. In: 750 Years of the City of Wolgast 1257–2007. Published by the city of Wolgast, Wolgast 2007, pp. 48–55 and pp. 56–60
- Erika Kehnscherper: Library of the Protestant parish of St. Petri. In: Bernhard Fabian (Hrsg.): Handbook of the historical book inventory in Germany, Austria and Europe. Olms New Media, Hildesheim 2003
- Georg Dehio (edited by Hans-Christian Feldmann et al.): Handbook of German Art Monuments - Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin / Munich, 2016, ISBN 978-3-422-03128-9 .
Web links
- Literature about St. Petri Church (Wolgast) in the state bibliography MV
- Wolgast Church , website of the Protestant parish of St. Petri zu Wolgast
- St. Petri Church in Wolgast
Individual evidence
- ^ The crypt of the dukes of Pommern-Wolgast, Wolgaster Museumsschriften, Heft 4, Hoffmann-Druck, Wolgast 2000, pp. 7-14
- ^ The crypt of the dukes of Pommern-Wolgast, Wolgaster Museumsschriften, booklet 4, Hoffmann-Druck, Wolgast 2000, p. 15ff
- ↑ Petri church tower in Wolgast remains closed for the time being. Ostsee-Zeitung , February 2, 2018, accessed on May 6, 2020 .
- ↑ Information leaflet Tour in the nave , display in the church, July 2017.
- ↑ Bulletin : Epitaphium , on display in the church, July 2017.
- ↑ Information panel on the history of the crypt of the Dukes of Pomerania-Wolgast , attached at the entrance to the crypt, July 2017.
- ↑ Information board : Gravesite of the Dukes of Pomerania-Wolgast , set up in the Greifenkapelle, July 2017.
- ^ Church music Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania: Organ in Wolgast, St. Petri
- ^ Tom Schröter: Petri-Kirche will sound five voices in the future. In: Ostsee-Zeitung . Local edition for the island of Usedom, Wolgast and the region of November 27, 2012, p. 9
- ↑ a b Ev. Parish of St. Petri (ed.), The dance of death in the St. Petri Church in Wolgast . Geros-Verlag Neubrandenburg, undated
- ↑ Wolfgang Mietler: Introduction to The Dance of Death in the St. Petri Church in Wolgast . Geros-Verlag Neubrandenburg, undated
- ↑ Evangelical parish : The Church of St. Petri in Wolgast - The Wolgast Dance of Death ( Memento of the original from January 24, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Information document: The four ship models in the St. Petri Church in Wolgast , reprint from a text by Wolfgang Steusloff Votive ships - ship model in churches between Wismarbuch and Oderhaff , Hinstorff Verlag Rostock.
- ^ Hermann Hoogeweg : The founders and monasteries of the province of Pomerania. Volume 2. Szczecin 1925. p. 94.
- ↑ Entry in the manual of the historical book inventory online
- ^ Entry on the church library in the handbook of the historical book collections online.
Coordinates: 54 ° 3 ′ 13 ″ N , 13 ° 46 ′ 36 ″ E