St. Emmeran (Mainz)

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Choir and Romanesque tower of the Church of St. Emmeran / Mainz

The Catholic parish church Sankt Emmeran in Mainz was founded in the 8th century and first mentioned in 1220. The church was significantly rebuilt in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries. The church was badly damaged in World War II , but rebuilt in the 1960s and 1970s. Today St. Emmeran is home to the Italian parish of Mainz.

Foundation and patronage

St. Emmeran is under the patronage of Saint Emmeran of Regensburg (also: Emmeram , † 625), which is rare outside of Bavaria . This fact as well as excavation findings indicate a church was founded in the 9th century and thus at a time when churches and monasteries were increasingly being founded in Carolingian Mainz. The church was built on the Roman main road from the 1st century, which connected the legion camp on the Kästrich with the Rhine bridge (today Emmeransstraße).

In a document from Archbishop Siegfried II of Eppstein in 1220, the church is named under the name "St. Heimerammi ”mentioned for the first time. A priest of this church is already commemorated in 1245.

Construction phases

The Sankt Emmeran church around 1900

Nothing has been preserved above ground from the pre-Romanesque structure. The main tower of the church from the end of the 12th century has survived from the Romanesque construction phase to this day. The tower is five storeys high and divided into larger corner and narrower central bars. Further structuring elements are strong cornices in connection with partly two-layer arched friezes . Originally the lower two floors were only provided with narrow loopholes . From the third floor there are two coupled double windows with a central column on each side .

From 1300 the previous building was replaced by a Gothic building including the Romanesque tower. It was a free-standing three-aisled basilica , divided into five bays and a choir bay. The tower with the adjoining Severus Chapel was added to the north of the choir yoke . The construction was carried out under the influence of the Dominican mendicant order as a so-called mendicant church .

Death lamp on the choir

A death lamp from around 1400 is located on the southeast side of the choir. The choir itself has a five-eighth end, the northeast side of which is covered by the staircase to the Romanesque tower.

Other smaller modifications and extensions were made in the following centuries. In the first third of the 16th century, further additions were made. In the years 1671/1672 a representative expansion of the churchyard and the surrounding walls took place. Parts of the wall and the arched portal with the donor's coat of arms from 1671 are still preserved today. During the Baroque period , 1700–1701, the original diamond roof was supplemented by an additional bell storey with a hood and lantern . Further tower structures were also built on the Romanesque church tower and the last time changes were made to the aisle windows of the basilica.

In 1762 the church was renewed.

Furnishing

Choir of the St. Emmeran Church in Mainz

Emmeran's Gothic furnishings included a wall tabernacle behind the high altar. A three-part epitaph by the painter A. Brück, which was completed in 1623, served as a high altar from 1633 to 1680. The middle picture showed a crucifixion scene, the left wing Anna Selbdritt, the right a Eustachius. In the predella one saw a Lord's Supper scene in which people from the Frankenstein-Brendel family were represented.

Outstanding works of art originated from the Baroque and Rococo periods. The baroque high altar comes from the Altmünster Abbey, which was closed in 1782, and was bought in Emmeran in 1810. The reliquary altar, which was located in the north aisle, also came from Altmünster. The relics of the Bilhildis of Altmünster , a handkerchief and a Valentinus relic , which is said to have come to Altmünster from the Calixtus catacomb in 1738 , were found there. In 1810, the sculptor Bittrich made two figures of saints, those of St. Emmeran and Boniface, as well as the angels on the choir stalls.

The choir stalls and the carved furniture covering all sides of the sacristy (around 1770), a picture above the baptismal font, the confessionals, the vestibules in the north and south aisles including the inlaid door leaves and the pulpit with the four evangelists came from the Rococo.

Destruction and rebuilding

Like many other valuable ecclesiastical and secular buildings in Mainz, St. Emmeran was badly destroyed in the air raids on Mainz on February 27, 1945. Most of the vault collapsed, only the outer walls of the entire building remained. The choir stalls, the pews, the baptismal font, the organ as well as the high altar canopy and the sacristy furniture were burned. Fritz Arens , the city's preservationist during the war, was able to save the rococo pulpit and the 5 × 3 meter painting “Assumption of Mary” by Franz Anton Maulbertsch from destruction and move them to the crypt of the Mainz Cathedral.

After the end of the war, the pulpit was restored and is now in St. Quintin . The Beatrix bell was also preserved . The bell, cast in 1493, is the third oldest bell in the city of Mainz and is located in St. Stephan . It bears the inscription:

"+ Anno + domini + m + cccc + xciii + jar +
sant + beadrix + bell + heis + me +
peter + zur + bells + zu + spier + gos + me + ” .

Three more bells could not be saved. These come from different time periods from workshops in Mainz and were dated 1379 (27 quintals), 1809 (16 quintals), and no year (9 quintals).

In 1682 Johann Peter Geissel built an organ, the case of which came from J. Antz. The organ was renewed in 1903 by Schlimbach from Würzburg and had 26 registers . The case was restored by Bittrich as early as 1810.

The restoration of the church only began after more than 20 years. The tower that has been preserved was freed from its superstructures, which had been attached 200 years earlier, in 1966 and completed with a simple pyramid roof. In 1978 the choir was restored. The nave itself was secured between 1978 and 1981 by a self-supporting concrete and aluminum scaffolding structure, which securely supports the ruined inner part. St. Emmeran is now used as a community center for the Italian parish in Mainz.

Legends

The legend of Amram von Mainz is associated with the Church of St. Emmeran.

Web links

Commons : St. Emmeran  - collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

References and comments

  1. ↑ Franz Staab : Mainz from the 5th century to the death of Archbishop Willigis (407-1011). In: Franz Dumont (ed.), Ferdinand Scherf , Friedrich Schütz: Mainz - The history of the city. , P. 86
  2. ↑ August Schuchert : The Mainz churches and chapels . Publisher Johann Falk III. Sons, Mainz 1931
  3. ^ State Office for Monument Preservation Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Cultural monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate . Volume 2.2 .: City of Mainz - Old Town . P. 96
  4. ^ Christiane Reves: Building blocks for the history of the city of Mainz: Mainz Colloquium 2000 . Franz Steiner Verlag, Volume 55 2002, ISBN 978-3-515-08176-4 , pp. 142 .
  5. ^ Entry on St. Emmeran on regionalgeschichte.net, accessed on November 15, 2012.
  6. ↑ Motet (ed.): Bell landscape diocese Mainz . Motette-Verlag, Düsseldorf 2005, p. 18.

Coordinates: 50 ° 0 ′ 0.8 ″  N , 8 ° 16 ′ 6 ″  E