St. Laurentius (Wismar)

St. Laurence

The Catholic parish church St. Laurentius is a church building in Wismar in the district of Northwest Mecklenburg in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania . It received the name of St. Lawrence because the Roman martyr was the city patron of Wismar until the Reformation.

History and architecture

Interior

The Reformation first found its way into Wismar with the Franciscans of the Gray Monastery . As a result, the medieval parish churches of St. Marien , St. Georgen and St. Nikolai as well as the hospital church of the Holy Spirit became Lutheran , and with the death of the Dominican prior in 1575, the Black Monastery was last introduced .

Only in the years 1870 and 1871 were Catholic masses held again for French prisoners of war in the city. In today's Biedenstrasse, two rooms were rented and used as a chapel. House No. 12 in Breiten Strasse was acquired in 1878 and converted into a chapel. A large number of the believers were Polish reapers. Permission to build a Catholic church on the south-eastern edge of the historic old town was granted in 1901 by Grand Duke Friedrich Franz IV . The consecration was carried out on October 12, 1902 by the Bishop of Osnabrück Hubertus Voss .

St. Laurentius is the fifth post-Reformation Catholic church in Mecklenburg and the first with a tower (37 m high). It was built as a brick hall church in the neo-Romanesque style with arched friezes and pilaster strips . The building is 32 m long, 14.5 wide and 10 m high in the central nave. The altar window that was installed in 1902 was destroyed in the Second World War . The director of the glass painting studio in Weimar, A. Annys, designed three new arched windows in 1948. They show representations of the Trinity and indicate the importance of the sacraments. In 1960 the interior was extensively renovated. During the renovation in 1988, the altar window was exposed, the old figures were put back up and the room was repainted. The tower and roof were slated in 1990. The Marienkapelle was established in 1979 and consecrated by Bishop Heinrich Theissing . It serves as a place of silence, is barred and houses a statue of the Virgin Mary from around 1450. Auxiliary Bishop Norbert Werbs crowned the statue of Mary, which is framed by a halo in 1985.

Furnishing

The bells were donated in 1904 by Countess Mary von Bothmer auf Bothmer bei Klütz . In 1914 and then again in 1942 the bell had to be delivered for purposes important to the war effort. In 1958 three new chilled cast iron bells were hung in the tower. In 2009 they were replaced by four bronze bells that had been cast in 1960 for the now closed Christ-König-Kirche in Kiel-Dietrichsdorf.
The large organ was erected from 1991 to 1992 by the Schuke organ builder from Potsdam. The instrument has two manuals with five registers each, a pedal with five registers and 1178 pipes made of copper, tin and wood. The new organ was consecrated on January 26, 1992.
The relief of the tabernacle shows the institution of the Eucharist during the Last Supper.
The font was made from sandstone in 1964. The surrounding relief shows representations from the Old Testament. The baptism and crucifixion of Jesus and the descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles and Mary are depicted on the bronze lid.
The Way of the Cross was painted by E. Pischel in 1954, the large-format panels hang on both sides of the ship.
Ferdinand Stuflesser made the Laurentius figure from Val Gardena. The work was created around the turn of the 20th century. The captured figure needs renovation, it is soiled by room humidity, fine dust and candle smoke. A crack is clearly visible from the neck to the head.
The devotion to the Sacred Heart increased sharply in the 19th century. At the beginning of the twentieth century a Sacred Heart altar was erected as the right side altar. The importance of worship declined sharply in the second half of the 20th century. The altar was demolished in 1960; the figure was stored in the attic. It was set up on a simple plinth in the left aisle in 1988 and removed again in 2008 because the artistic representation was met with incomprehension.
The new altar was erected in 2008. In the same year the room was extensively redesigned.