St. Johannis (Nieblum)
St. Johannis is an Evangelical Lutheran parish church in the village of Nieblum ( Frisian : Njiblem ) on the North Frisian island of Föhr, which is part of the Föhr-Amrum district . In addition to Nieblum, the municipality includes the villages of Oevenum , Midlum , Alkersum , Borgsum and Witsum .
Building history
The Church of St. Johannis is the oldest and largest church on the island , ahead of the other two medieval churches on Föhr, the Church of St. Nicolai on Föhr in Boldixum, district of Wyk auf Föhr and the Church of St. Laurentii in Süderende . It was built in the first half of the 13th century AD, probably on the site of an earlier church.
The nave and the south transept were built in the Romanesque style with a flat ceiling. The northern part of the transept was built in Gothic form in the second half of the 13th century, which meant that the southern transept was redesigned in Gothic style for reasons of symmetry . The nave, on the other hand, was no longer redesigned, the builders contented themselves with raising the wall by a third. The flat ceiling has been preserved to this day.
history
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The oldest church on the island, like the churches in Keitum, on Pellworm and in Tating, is said to have been designed by a master builder in the 11th century, but there is a period of around 200 years between the first records and actual documentary evidence. St. Johannis is mentioned for the first time in 1100.
From 1435 to 1721 Föhr was politically divided: the western part of the island was under the Danish king, the eastern part to the dukes of Schleswig-Gottorf. Like the church of St. Nicolai in Boldixum, St. Johannis belonged to the eastern part of the island, while St. Laurentii formed the spiritual center of the western part. The border ran through the western part of Nieblum, which meant that the places Witsum , Goting and Borgsum , which actually belonged to the Nieblumer parish of St. Johannis , were counted to Westerland-Föhr. Regardless of this separation, the Lutheran Reformation was introduced in both parts of the island.
location
The church is in an exposed location in the north of the municipality of Nieblum on the island of Föhr, between Borgsum and Wyk . The Friesendom as the largest village church in Schleswig-Holstein is also called, is in line with the Church of St. Severin in Keitum on Sylt , the Old Church on Pellworm and the Church today lies on the mainland St. Magnus in Tating on the Eiderstedt peninsula .
The church is located in the middle of a church cemetery on a raised hill above the transition from the Geest to the Marsch at the northern entrance to the village of Nieblum, four meters above sea level and five kilometers west of the island's main town, Wyk. The tower, which towers over the flat landscape, is crowned with a gable roof . From the lake you can see the three massive square church towers of St. John's Church and its two sister churches, which rise above the largely flat landscape.
meaning
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All three churches on Föhr are mentioned in a document as early as 1240. In the pre-Reformation period, the church on Föhr was the main parish church on the two islands of Föhr and Amrum, which explains the size and furnishings of the church. A priest and seven deacons officiated in the church in the 14th century. The church may even have been the seat of a diocese. The cross-shaped floor plan of the church, which was unusual for country churches of the time, also suggests that the church had an outstanding position; in the state of Schleswig it was the second largest church at the time of its construction. The structural significance of the building corresponds to the folklore name of the building - the church is generally called the Friesendom . After the construction of the sister church St. Nicolai on Föhr, the area of responsibility of the church was reduced: The places Boldixum and Wrixum were no longer looked after from Nieblum.
Namesake
The church was consecrated to John the Baptist in the pre-Reformation period . Even after the Reformation on Föhr, which was completed in 1530, no renaming was carried out, although the Protestant denomination does not recognize the veneration of saints in the scope of the pre-Reformation church.
building
Today's cruciform brick building has been in shape since the 13th century and has an early Gothic tower. The south wall houses a tympanum relief of the previous building, as can be found in many Western European church buildings of the 12th and 13th centuries.
The medieval structure of the single-nave church is characterized by a transept and a three-storey tower, an elongated nave, the detached square choir and a low apse .
The 32-meter-high tower, the construction of which began in the early 13th century, was originally structured on the outside in a visually elaborate manner; in later restorations, the structured corner wall strips and pointed arches were covered. It is an original part of the church and was built together with it. This is in contrast to the two sister churches on Föhr, whose towers are assigned to later epochs. The walls of the tower are two and a half meters thick at ground level, at least 180 centimeters at the height of the gable roof.
Extensions
The windows on the south side of the building were later enlarged to let more light into the church, those on the north side were made smaller and smaller. They are consistently ogival, which testifies to the influence of the Gothic on the renovation work carried out at the end of the Middle Ages.
The church opens to the village with two preserved entrances on the south side. The south portal is in the last third of the nave, the former north portal opposite no longer exists. At the southern end of the transept there is another entrance in a baroque porch from 1688 with a sundial over the door.
The sacristy built on the north side of the choir dates from the late Gothic period.
Building material
In the base area, older, hewn and reused granite ashlars indicate a previous church. The masonry was built with bricks in the monastery format (28 × 13 × 8 cm), as is typical for the country. In many cases, however, there are also smaller brick formats that bear witness to later restoration attempts. In the course of restorations since 1964, only the formats originally used are processed. The walls of the tower are made of tufa , a porous volcanic material from the Eifel , which was faced with bricks on the outside.
Restorations
Exposed to the harsh North Sea climate, the salty air and frequent driving rain, the church has repeatedly required restorations over the centuries. In some cases, brick formats were used that differed significantly from the original furnishings.
The western half of the southern nave had to be renewed as early as the 14th century. In 1662 parts of the crossing vault had to be renewed after a collapse.
In 1964 and 1970/71, large parts of the exterior facing were renewed over a large area, with bricks being used again in their original dimensions. The restorations continue to this day.
The church has been completely renovated and repaired since 2006. In the course of this work, parts of the roof were renewed, the facade was largely restored and other urgently necessary renovations were carried out to preserve the building fabric. To date, these maintenance and renewal measures have required funds of well over one million euros, which were raised by the parish itself, a support association, the European Union , the North Elbe Church and foundations .
The entire roof structure with a size of 1050 square meters was covered with lead. A drainage now provides for drying of the building, which has long suffered from water and moisture. In some places the plaster is still removed to promote the drying of the masonry.
The damaged masonry is currently being removed from the outside, section by section, and the open areas are immediately covered with bricks in the original format. The building material consists of bricks in five formats and a specially prepared food mix that is supplied by a Danish brickworks from Egernsund north of Flensburg.
Furnishing
The interior is optically determined by the plastering in white color. Another choir arch marks the boundary between the large nave and the eastern part of the church, which was reserved for clergy in the pre-Reformation period, with the choir and chancel in the apse area.
The nave has a simple wooden ceiling, while the ceilings of the eastern parts of the church are vaulted. After the collapse of the crossing vault at the intersection between the nave and the transept, the arches and their templates were significantly reinforced.
St. Johannis has a splendid interior to this day.
Painting
The vault ribs and crowns were renewed in their original state in 1974 according to the color samples found. The visitor is offered a restrained but clear structuring of the interior, the spatial effect derives a major part of its power from the economical use of color in muted earth tones on a white background. All plastic arches are decorated with long-stemmed four-leaf flowers.
Seating
The seating arrangement consists of two bench blocks with a central aisle on the ground floor in the nave. A raised gallery on the south side of the nave increased the capacity of the church building.
Galleries
The sermon services in evangelical tradition with extensive, long church music interludes require comfortable seats for all worshipers. In order to meet this need, space for further pews was gradually created by adding galleries. At the same time, the side altars from the pre-Reformation period were removed. The gallery on the north side of the nave was set up - like the organ gallery - in 1660, it stands on iron supports. The stage in the north transept was added in the late 18th century, doubling the capacity there. In addition, there is a painted box in the niche on the south side of the nave from 1772.
altar
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The altar from 1487 is a five-winged Marian coronation altar in the late Gothic style. The shrine altar has remarkable oil paintings on the outside of the wings, which show scenes from the life of the church patron John the Baptist .
When opened, the altar shows a total of 16 figures from Christian iconography. At the center is Mary, crowned by Christ on her left. The figure of John, the namesake of the church, stands on Mary's right.
Because of the central position of Mary, the altar can be addressed as a pre-Reformation Marian altar. To the right of the crowning Christ, seen from the viewer, is a Pope, probably New Year's Eve I (314 to 335) with Pope tiara . The altarpiece is most likely from the last quarter of the 15th century, i.e. before the Reformation, which was introduced to Föhr in 1530. On the left and right, next to the main figures, the depiction of the apostles follows. The representation of the inner part is based on a traditional imagery, while the front sides of the two outer wings, which are not visible to the viewer, are contemporary in design. Here two representations show scenes from the life of John the Baptist in a modern Dutch-realistic painting style.
A carved crucifixion group can be seen on the altarpiece. The lower part of the altar, the predella , leaves a niche in the middle, in which the monstrance was shown during masses in the pre-Reformation period . The two paintings on the altar stand show two scenes from the life of Jesus Christ - the washing of the feet and the Lord's Supper .
organ
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The organ was set up in 1838 on an organ loft that was pulled in in 1660. The contemporary expansion took place from 1976 to 1978 with 33 registers and four works and cost 380,000 DM. The organ builder was Detlef Kleuker , who died in 1988. The manufacturing company is based in the Brackwede district of Bielefeld .
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- Coupling : I / II, III / II, I / P, II / P, III / P
pulpit
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The church has two pulpits. The older of the two is located at ground level in the southern choir and is very unadorned. In accordance with the outstanding importance of the sermon in the evangelical liturgy, a renaissance style ornamental pulpit was set up in 1618 in the form of a small gallery at the end of the southern nave in front of the transept. The position of the pulpit guarantees all worshipers in both the long and the northern transept a clear view of the pastor and good acoustic conditions.
This second pulpit was donated by Duke Friedrich von Schleswig and Holstein, Prefect van der Wisch von Tondern, Provost Johannes Mauritius von Tondern and Jacob Boetius (pastor of the community from 1604 to 1629) and shows the salvation history of Jesus Christ. It is from the workshop of Heinrich Ringerink from Flensburg , where several similarly built pulpits come from in northern Germany. The carved bas-reliefs with scenes from the life of Jesus Christ were prefabricated in the workshop and, according to the client's order, subsequently glued into the open wall panels of the pulpit.
The scenes in the Nieblumer Church depict the fall of man, the Annunciation to Mary, the birth of Jesus, the adoration of the kings, Jesus' baptism, crucifixion, resurrection and the last judgment finds here. It is attached to the side of the pulpit, which faces the church service visitors in the nave and, through this position, gains the weight that is definitely intended.
In the middle of the cycle of pictures is the baptism that John performs on Jesus Christ - in view of the reserved attitude that the evangelical tradition has towards the patron saint, a remarkable highlight of the church's namesake.
The scenes depicted are commented on on the base and on the sound cover of the pulpit with quotations from the Bible in Low German. The pilasters between the bas-reliefs are decorated with images of the apostles. Angel faces, cones and depictions of fruit complete the decoration of the pulpit.
Baptismal font
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The Romanesque granite - baptismal font , from a boulder worked out, is the oldest piece of inventory of the Church and worked to 1200th In terms of art history, it is one of the most important works of Romanesque in northern Germany and Scandinavia. The mighty cupa , the cavity for receiving the baptismal water, sits on an oval, beveled base stone. The stone is figured with two scenes on the outside:
A knight attacks a hybrid creature, half lion, half snake, who in turn has half devoured a person who is clinging to a tree. On the opposite side of the stone, two lions attack a person who in turn is sitting on a monster. The subject of both representations is the struggle of good and evil for the human soul. The tree of life and the knight symbolize the forces of good, which can only bring this struggle to a victorious end with the help of baptism in the triune God.
The archaic symbolism, combined with the artistic depiction in a tight space on the surface of the baptismal font, will have a lasting impression not only on contemporary worshipers.
Similar baptismal fonts have also been found in mainland churches. On some of them, paint residues could be found, so that it cannot be ruled out that the Nieblum baptismal font was originally painted.
Originally, the baptized people were immersed three times in the stone cavity, usually lined with lead sheet, while invoking God, Christ and the Holy Spirit. A new church order in the Schleswig-Holstein area changed this practice: from 1542 onwards, the head was only watered three times, which resulted in a baptismal bowl being hung in the opening of the baptismal font, which had to absorb significantly less water. This service is still performed today by a baptismal bowl from the 17th century, which is hung in the baptismal font using a holding device.
Figure of John the Baptist
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The patron saint of the church is present to the worshipers in the form of a wooden sculpture, which is set up in the southeast corner of the choir and impressively dominates the church interior with a size of 2.75 meters. It stands on a stone pedestal and is subtly colored. The painting comes from a restoration in 1980, whereby an older color scheme was used.
John stands preaching with a Bible and a lamb figure on the back of a little man who has been identified as King Herod . As a result, John rises symbolically over the man who, according to biblical tradition, had him executed because of his work.
The impression of a somewhat awkward hand position comes from the fact that later attribute additions were made to the figure that were not originally intended by the artist. The Bible and lamb figure, which stands for Jesus Christ, were added later; the cross staff that John originally wielded is missing. The work dates from the middle of the 15th century.
Seven relief figures
The figures are divided into two groups: the apostles Peter and Paul from the first third of the 15th century can be found on the northern choir arch, a group with three depictions of women ( Saint Barbara , Saint Mary with child and Saint Dorothea ) are on attached to the west wall of the south transept, Saint Michael is to the north at the arch between the crossing and the nave. Finally, a Saint Catherine stands east on the arch between the crossing and the south transept and dates from around 1520.
Sacrament cabinet
A richly carved cupboard for the utensils of the Lord's Supper is located in a niche to the left of the apse.
epitaph
An obituary portrait for Ginger Siewertsen Jacobs from the year 1613, which originally hung in the church of Königsbüll on Alt- Nordstrand , was brought to Nieblum after the church was lost as a result of the second man drinking in 1634 and can now be found on the east wall of the south transept. The artist of this richly decorated work is the woodcutter Heinrich Ringering, from whose workshop the magnificent pulpit of the church also comes.
graveyard
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Since St. Johannis is the parish church for many surrounding villages, the church also has a large cemetery that completely surrounds it. It is lined with trees. As in numerous other cemeteries in North Friesland , the sometimes magnificent so-called speaking tombstones tell the story of the seafarers from Nieblum and the surrounding areas. As in the other two church cemeteries in Föhr, the cemetery of the parish of St. Johannis also has many gravestones from the Baroque period, which have earned their artistic reputation through splendid ornamentation and artistic font design. About 250 of the old stones are mostly still in their original places, only a few have been placed in the protection of the church interior because of their value.
The tombstones often tell the visitor in detail about the life of the buried in High or Low German or in Latin. The relief decoration of the tombs is often very extensive, the forms are not repeated. Often pictures with scenes from the Holy Scriptures are the main motif of a stone, but often the deceased or - in the case of seafarers - ships are depicted. What the representations have in common is that they testify to an unbreakable certainty of faith and salvation, which find their noblest symbol in the figure of the often depicted Jesus Christ.
A special iconography tradition has been preserved in the floral motif: the husband and sons of the family are listed on the tombstone on the left hand side in tulip-like flowers, the wife and daughters on the right hand side in the form of four-flowered flowers. A broken flower indicates that the person concerned had already died at the time the tombstone was made. The frequency of this motif testifies to the high child mortality rate in earlier centuries.
Legends
The introduction of the Reformation was allegedly opposed by a deacon of the church who - in order to prove the correctness of his Catholic faith - ventured on a ride to Amrum in 1524 during the flood period . He announced beforehand that he would not return alive if the new Protestant denomination was the right one. On the way back from Amrum he fell from his horse and broke his neck, whereupon nothing stood in the way of the introduction of the Reformation on Föhr.
literature
- St.Johannis - Nieblum auf Föhr , from the series art guides, issue No. 306/4, 2000.
- Schreiber, Elisabeth: Friedevoller Hafen, old gravestones in the churchyard of St. Johannis in Nieblum . Duisburg, ISBN 3-925609-00-8
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Insel-Bote : New Doctrine fell on fertile ground , accessed on November 6, 2016.
- ↑ Information on the organ on the Friesendom website
Web links
- Website of the Evangelical Lutheran parish of St. Johannis on Föhr
- St. Johannis in Nieblum on "Monuments Online"
Coordinates: 54 ° 41 ′ 36.3 ″ N , 8 ° 29 ′ 28.1 ″ E