St. Johannis (Mainz)

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View from the southeast of the Johanniskirche

The Johanniskirche is the oldest church in Mainz , after the Trier Cathedral the second oldest surviving episcopal church on German soil and the only surviving cathedral from the Merovingian, Late Carolingian and Early Ottonian times in Germany. From its consecration in 910 until the consecration of the Mainz Cathedral, a little further to the east, in 1036, it was the bishop's church of the Archdiocese of Mainz and was therefore later also referred to as Aldeduom (Old Cathedral). The Johanniskirche was taken over by the Protestant community in 1828 . Patron is Saint John the Baptist .

Christianity in Mainz and first episcopal church

View from the southwest of the east choir of the Johanniskirche

It is not clear when Christianity first took hold in Mogontiacum . The current state of research is that there is no evidence of Christianity, however organized, or of Christian martyrs in Mogontiacum , the Roman city of Mainz, for the period before the turn of Constantine . It was not until Sidonius († after 580) that there was a historically documented bishop of Mainz in the middle of the 6th century .

Historians, however, assume an organized parish under the direction of a bishop as early as the middle of the 4th century. The first reliable reference to a larger Christian community in Mogontiacum dates back to the year 368. Ammianus Marcellinus reported in connection with the invasion of the Alemanni under Rando of a large number of Christians who gathered for a church festival and were partly abducted by the Alamanni .

At the same time, the existence of a bishop's church is assumed, which was presumably in the area of ​​today's St. John's Church. The location of an official Roman episcopal church and the time it was built are still unclear and are discussed controversially in professional circles. It is relatively certain that this church could not have stood under the current cathedral grounds. Under the nearby St. Johannis Church, excavations in 1905 and 1950/51 u. a. Foundations of a late Roman building emerged. However, in the unpublished excavation at the time, these could not be clearly assigned to a building used by the church. Nevertheless, since then these foundations have often been interpreted as the remains of the first episcopal church, which one has to imagine as a church family with a cathedral. The period after 350 and before 368 (mention of a larger Christian community by Ammianus Marcellinus) was considered to be the possible origin of the episcopal or at least larger church. Alternatively, according to older research, an early Christian-Franconian episcopal church of St. Martin with the St. Mary's Church (later St. Johannis) is postulated as a catechum church , but this is not archaeologically comprehensible. Christian community life came to a standstill at the time of the Great Migration . Church life in Mainz was only possible again under Bishop Sidonius. The poet Venantius Fortunatus describes how Sidonius renewed church buildings. This is the oldest report on church building measures in Mainz.

At the end of the 8th century there was possibly a patronage exchange. Originally built as or near an archaeologically undetectable St. Mary's Church, after the burial of some relics of St.  Boniface by Bishop Lul in 754, the patronage passed to Boniface. A Boniface chapel near the Marienkirche is mentioned as early as 823 . Since the reliquary grave of St. Boniface is explicitly mentioned as being in St. Johannis at the end of the 18th century, the Boniface Chapel could have been a structurally non-independent part of the later St. John's Church as early as 754, but at the latest in 910. There is literary evidence of the construction of a baptistery in Mainz under Bishop Sidonius in the 6th century, whose patronage was transferred to the old one when the new cathedral was consecrated. Since no change of the diocesan patron St. Martin can be assumed in the second half of the 1st millennium, St. Martin can also be considered as patron, especially since the Mainz cathedral chapter celebrated a service on Martin's day in St. Johannis in the 18th century. Finally, a double patronage should also be considered: the Hatto building from 910 was equipped with two choirs , each with an altar, which - as in the Mainz Cathedral - had to be consecrated to two different saints.

From the Middle Ages to the 21st century

Archbishop Hatto I rebuilt the cathedral church from around 900 and consecrated it in 910. This makes it one of the oldest cathedral buildings in Germany after the Trier Cathedral . With changes added later, Hatto's building is the St. John's Church, which was handed down to us in the 20th century. As the cathedral church of the diocese of Mainz, this church was initially consecrated to Saint Martin of Tours . After 975 Archbishop Willigis had a new cathedral built east of the existing cathedral, the new Mainz Cathedral. The new building was also dedicated to Saint Martin in 1036. The entire furnishings and benefices of the cathedral chapter were transferred from the old cathedral, which in the next centuries was called Aldedu (o) m , i.e. the old cathedral , to the new church. After the consecration of the new building, a canon monastery was set up in the old cathedral . The patronage of John the Baptist for the Old Cathedral is only recorded in writing for the year 1128 , but it was probably established as early as 1036.

King Heinrich was crowned king in the Old Cathedral in 1002 and Archbishop Erkanbald found his final resting place here in 1021.

Probably because of the poor foundation, the transept was demolished in the Romanesque period and the crossing was redesigned into a nave yoke. In the middle of the 13th century the Johanniskirche was in such bad condition that Pope Gregory IX. an indulgence was granted in favor of the Church. But it wasn't until the 14th century that major construction work began: instead of the west choir, a high Gothic extension was built.

Major changes then took place in the Baroque period : in 1685 the floor was raised by more than 2 m, and a wooden groin vault was drawn in; In 1737 the east apse was broken off and a portal was added instead ; In 1747 the west choir was roofed over with a Welschen dome . Paradise burned down in 1767 , a covered corridor between the Johanniskirche and the cathedral.

With the French occupation in 1792 , the use as a collegiate church ended. The building was used as a warehouse and for military purposes. Finally, the pen was also formally dissolved with the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss . In 1828 the St. John's Church was made available to the Protestant community. Extensive restoration work was the result. The cloister in the north of the church was lost, the east portal and the side aisle arcades were bricked up. The separated side aisles were converted and some of them rented. The church was inaugurated in 1830.

From 1906 the interior of the church was redesigned in the Art Nouveau style , post-medieval fixtures were removed, and building studies were carried out by Rudolf Kautzsch . The design of the church was placed in the hands of the Darmstadt architect Friedrich Pützer . He built a new portal system in the east and redesigned the aisles. The entire interior was designed by Pützer as a total work of art.

During the Second World War , the church burned down completely after an air raid on Mainz in August 1942. The building was so badly damaged that demolition was considered but not carried out. The Darmstadt architect Karl Gruber led the reconstruction . He had all of Pützer's internals removed. Gruber based his design on the ideal of the original late Carolingian church building in Hatto. The transept , which was lost in the Middle Ages , was probably not reconstructed due to a lack of money , and the destroyed Welsche dome of the west choir could not be restored either. The lowering of the floor to its original level failed, not least for structural reasons, as the old foundations are inadequate. The baroque wooden vaults were not reconstructed, instead Gruber had a wooden pointed barrel pulled in, which comes close to the original spatial effect of an open roof structure and conveys the high Gothic west choir. On December 9, 1956, the St. John's Church was consecrated again after the renovation.

In 2009/10 extensive renovation work was carried out on the roof structure and masonry of the building. There were numerous events to raise the necessary funds, including a benefit concert in the neighboring Catholic cathedral.

As part of the archaeological work, the lid of the sarcophagus of the central burial was lifted on June 4, 2019

Significant archaeological finds were made from mid-2013 when underfloor heating was to be installed in the church. In preparation for this construction project, archaeological excavations began , which became increasingly extensive. Remnants of the building stock from previous buildings up to the Roman period were found. A Roman building from the 1st century, which cannot be further identified, was followed by a larger building built in the late Roman period with a north-south extension of approx. 20 meters. This building, to which three pillars found nearby, collapsed towards the end of the Roman period, with the collapsed tiled roof still in situ during the 2015 excavations . Fragments of a tombstone with early Christian motifs and remnants of the inscription probably date from the same period. Archaeologists and building researchers dated further masonry of a subsequent structure, rising up to 10 meters, to the following epochs of the Merovingian and Carolingian times. The interior of the church has been completely gutted since mid-2017. The excavations have been driven several meters below the last floor level. The archaeological research is ongoing (2019). In the meantime, a provisional wooden floor has been installed in the western area of ​​the church, which makes it possible to celebrate church services again on the construction site within a limited framework.

architecture

Hatto's Church is one of the few remaining late Carolingian church buildings. It was built as a basilica ; its broad central nave is higher than the narrow aisles. The building was laid out as a double choir in an east-west direction.

In the east there is a choir the width of the central nave. The side walls of the east choir are opened by two arched windows and two overlying round windows ( oculi ). A rectangular nave, which is flanked by narrow aisles, connects to the west of the choir. The central nave walls are broken through in the upper area (the upper aisle ) by four arched windows each, below each four arcades (closed later) open into the former side aisles (now community rooms). A square yoke is attached to this nave, which is similar to the eastern one, but was the crossing of the nave and transept at the time of construction. This was followed in the late Carolingian and Romanesque times by a semicircular apse , which was replaced in the 14th century by a high Gothic choir with a square floor plan.

organ

Around 1797 Franz Xaver Ripple built an organ for the Altmünster Church in Mainz, which was transferred to the Welschnonnen Church around 1808 . In 1830 this organ was rebuilt and expanded by the organ builder Bernhard Dreymann in the Johanniskirche. In 1884 the organ was replaced by a new one by Wilhelm Sauer , the old organ was sold to the Protestant community in Tann (Rhön) , where it was replaced by a new organ in 1971. The Sauer organ was destroyed in the Second World War. A new organ was built in 1960/61 by the organ building company Förster & Nicolaus (Lich). The slider chests -instrument has 40 registers on three manuals and pedal . The organ was later equipped with an electronic composer system and sequencer . During the renovation from 2013 this organ was removed and from 2018 it was installed in the monastery church of Ilsenburg .

literature

in alphabetical order by authors / editors

  • Fritz Arens : The art monuments of the city of Mainz . Part 1, Churches A – K (= The Art Monuments of Rhineland-Palatinate . Volume 4). Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich 1961, pp. 409–442.
  • Fritz Arens, Hanswolf Scriba: Mainz, St. Johannis (= Small Art Guide . No. 1109). Schnell and Steiner, Munich 1977.
  • Michael Bonewitz: I think the finds in the Johanniskirche are a sensation. Interview with Professor Dr. Stefan Weinfurter . In: Mainz. Quarterly issues for culture, politics, economics, history . Volume 34, Issue 4, 2014, pp. 10-23.
  • Michael Bonewitz: Mainz discovers an old cathedral. Johanniskirche is already turning out to be an archaeological sensation . In: standards. Forum of the Mainz Cathedral Building Association . Volume 16, 2014, pp. 58-63.
  • Friedhelm Jürgensmeier : The Episcopal Church of Saint Martin in Mainz (= contributions to the Mainz church history . Volume 1). Knecht, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-7820-0534-1 .
  • Marlene Kleiner, Matthias Untermann: The Old Cathedral of Mainz - Building studies in the St. Johanniskirche 2013-2016 . In: INSITU 2017/2. ISSN 1866-959X, pp. 153-162.
  • Christian-Erdmann Schott : St. Johannis - mother church for the Protestant Mainz. 1802-2010 . In: Ebernburg books . Volume 47, 2013, pp. 63–78 = supplement to sheets for Palatine church history and religious folklore . Volume 80, 2013, pp. 255-270.
  • Dethard von Winterfeld : The old cathedral in Mainz. On the architecture of the Johanniskirche (= research contributions of the Episcopal Cathedral and Diocesan Museum . Volume 1). Schnell + Steiner, Regensburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-7954-2777-1 .

Web links

Commons : St. Johannis (Mainz)  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eugen Ewig : The oldest Mainz patronage. Early history of the diocese of Mainz. In: Eugen Ewig: Late Antique and Franconian Gaul. Collected Writings (1952–1973). Munich 1979, p. 156.
  2. ^ Walburg Boppert : On the spread of Christianity in Upper Germany with special consideration of the situation in the provincial capital Mogontiacum. In: Wolfgang Spickermann, Hubert Cancik, Jörg Rüpke (Ed.): Religion in the Germanic provinces of Rome. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2001, ISBN 978-3-16-147613-6 , p. 383.
  3. ↑ Leonhard Schumacher assumes that this was Easter on April 20, 368.
  4. ↑ Ammianus Marcellinus 27, 8, 1 and 27, 10, 1.
  5. ^ Jürgen Oldenstein : Mogontiacum. In: Heinrich Beck, Dieter Geuenich, Heiko Steuer (Hrsg.): Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde . Volume 20: Metuonis - Scientific Methods in Archeology. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2001, p. 152; Karl-Viktor Decker , Wolfgang Selzer : Mainz from the time of Augustus to the end of Roman rule. In: Hildegard Temporini , Wolfgang Haase (Hrsg.): Rise and decline of the Roman world . Volume II 5, 1: Political history (provinces and marginal peoples: Germania [continued], Alpine procuratures, Raetia) . De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1976, ISBN 3-11006-690-4 , p. 530.
  6. ^ Hans Werner Nopper: The pre-bonifatian bishops of Mainz. A critical examination of the sources on the beginnings of the diocese of Mainz and the reliability of the lists of bishops. Self-published, Mülheim an der Ruhr (Books on Demand, Norderstedt) 2001, ISBN 3-83112-429-9 , p. 41 ff. (Diploma thesis University of Bonn 1995/96).
  7. ↑ Ludwig Falck : From the Franconian period to the end of the 18th century . In: State Office for Monument Preservation Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Cultural monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate . Volume 2, 2: City of Mainz - Old Town . In: Monument topography of the Federal Republic of Germany . 3. Edition. Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 1997, ISBN 3-88462-139-4 , p. 15 ff.
  8. ↑ Venantius Fortunatus, Carminum liber II No. 11-12 and IX No. 9.
  9. ↑ Ludwig Falck: From the Franconian period to the end of the 18th century . In: State Office for Monument Preservation Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): Cultural monuments in Rhineland-Palatinate . Volume 2, 2: City of Mainz - Old Town . 3. Edition. Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 1997, ISBN 3-88462-139-4 , p. 100.
  10. ↑ Markus Schug: Old Cathedral much older than expected. faz.net, February 27, 2014, accessed February 27, 2014.
  11. ↑ State archeology finds fragments of a late antique Christian tombstone. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 13, 2016 ; accessed on January 13, 2016 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (with picture). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ska-johannis-mainz.ekhn.org
  12. ↑ Excavations in the Mainz Johanniskirche: “It is most exciting when something is opened” . From the SWR Landesschau Rheinland-Pfalz , accessed on March 17, 2014.
  13. ↑ Fritz Rohbach (ed.): Festschrift for the inauguration of the new great organ of the Protestant St. John's Church in Mainz 1961 . Mainz 1961.
  14. ↑ Organ disposition ( Memento of the original from October 6, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the pages of church music to St. Johannis. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.johanniskantorei-mainz.de
  15. ↑ Jörg Niemann: Organ from St. Johannis sounds in the Harz In. Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz from December 27, 2018

Coordinates: 49 ° 59 ′ 54 ″  N , 8 ° 16 ′ 20 ″  E