St. Mary's Assumption (Cologne)
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The Catholic parish church of St. Mary's Assumption was for a long time the largest church in Cologne after the cathedral and is one of the few remaining architectural testimonies of the baroque in the city. The former college church of the Jesuits , located on Marzellenstrasse near the cathedral, was built according to plans by Christoph Wamser , who had already built the Jesuit church in Molsheim ( Alsace ). This church also served as a direct model for St. Mary's Assumption. Wamser is also verified as a site manager until 1623. Then Valentin Boltz from Thuringia took over the construction management and interior design.
The foundation stone was laid in 1618. In 1629 it was put into use. It was completed in 1678. During the Second World War , the church was almost completely destroyed, except for the surrounding walls. In the years 1949 to 1979 it was restored to its original shape. The Cologne complex was built at the same time as the Jesuit Church of St. Michael in Aachen , and then the churches in Bonn , Coesfeld and Paderborn .
Overall system
St. Mariä Himmelfahrt is a three-aisled, seven-bay basilica with galleries, a narrow transept with five-sided side choirs that encompass the entire length of the transept arms, and three-bay main choir in the width of the central nave, which closes with three sides of a hexagon. The western entrance front is - probably based on the model of the Jesuit church in Luxembourg - accompanied by two flanking towers; they are moved forward in relation to the facade, so that a narrow courtyard is created. The bell tower rises behind the choir, which is also surrounded by a wreath of sacristy rooms. The angles between the transept arms and the aisles fill chapels with adjacent spiral staircases leading to the galleries. Two stairwells in the flanking towers provide further access to the galleries, of which only the northern one still exists. The church is made of plastered brick and structured with stone.
Dimensions
- Total length: 60.15 meters
- Total width: 24.20 meters
- Width of the central nave: 12.60 meters
- clear height: 24.80 meters
- Aisle width: 4.80 meters
Exterior construction
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Choirs and long sides - only partially visible today due to an overwhelming renovation - are structured by pointed-arch tracery windows and strong buttresses. The transept arms do not appear on the exterior; they are under one roof with the side aisles and side choirs. The upper storey and the choir tower are smoothly plastered, the other parts of the side facade are plastered with ashlar. The original color version has not survived; what is conceivable is a white broken into gray.
The entrance front is divided into three parts by large orders of pillars and the structure shows the basilica cross-section of the church. The arched central portal is framed by double Corinthian columns and strong entablature. Between the pairs of pillars, niches with the Jesuit saints Ignatius von Loyola (left) and Francis Xaverius (right). In the apex of the arch there is a cartouche with the Christ monogram, indicated by two angels in the arch spandrels. The crown of the entablature is the coat of arms of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, held by lions and surrounded by the golden fleece . The House of Wittelsbach was connected to the city through the office of the Cologne electors and was an important donor when the church was built. Next to the portal are other Jesuit saints: Aloisius von Gonzaga (left) and Stanislaus Kostka (right). A six-part pointed arched window with rich tracery rises above the main portal. The main and secondary portals, including the figures, were painted in color, with a large proportion of gold. The flanking towers have stone-framed arched windows on the lower four floors; the two upper floors have been given a romanization and crowned by curved hoods with open lanterns.
Interior construction
The room is committed to medieval architecture; However, the lighting and furnishings change its appearance in the early Baroque style. Six round pillars of the Tuscan order connected by pointed arches separate the central nave from the basilica side aisles. They are divided by galleries and connected to the organ gallery on two round pillars in the west. The stone parapets of the galleries with figure niches consist of openwork tracery in late Gothic forms. On consoles with lush hanging grapes in the central nave, crossing and choir rests a rich net vault in the overall shape of a flat, half-stone barrel with high lancet caps over the choir and cantilever windows. The fine-meshed ribbed network consists alternately of the basic shapes star and square and spans the entire room without conventional belt arches. A patterned floor made of black and white marble slabs corresponds to the net and star vaults.
The bright light guidance through the originally colorless windows is entirely in keeping with the Baroque style. The reveals of the windows show a constantly repeating stucco made of moldings and rosettes with the names of Christ and Mary or angel heads. Window contours, pillar capitals, vaulted consoles of the galleries and arcade contours are also decorated with ornamental stucco.
Christ and Mary, the central figures of the picture program, appear as " Salvator Mundi " and " Regina Coeli " in larger-than-life sculptures on the triumphal arch. They are thus assigned to the choir area as the place of the Eucharist and thus join together with the free sculptures of the apostles on the round pillars of the central nave and the organ gallery.
In addition to the apostles, there were smaller figures of saints in the niches of the balustrades, all but two of which were lost in the Second World War. In the walls of the choir there are niches hidden by paintings in which relics were displayed on special feast days .
Furnishing
High altar
The high altar was donated by Elector Ferdinand of Bavaria in 1628 and made in the Cologne college workshop under the direction of Valentin Boltz. The high altar in Munich's Jesuit Church St. Michael can be viewed as a model. After the war, the altar was reconstructed from 1964 to 1979 using recovered original fragments. The altar, carved from wood and set in the original color scheme of black / red / gold, measures the entire height of the choir (22.50 meters) on three floors. The two lower floors are the same, but the upper one is lower. The two arched fields of the altar paintings are flanked on the sides by columns, on the inside of which there were originally angels, on the outside there were Old Testament figures that can no longer be interpreted. These figures were destroyed in the last world war; In their place were six figures from the cycle of apostles from St. Pantaleon in Cologne and the apostles Peter and Paul , acquired in the art trade, as inner figures on the lower floor .
The second floor shows a blown gable, from which the top floor with a round picture field protrudes, flanked by King David (far right) and three other unnamed characters from the Old Testament. Moses (left) and Aaron (right) stand on the curved pediments of the crown . At the end a half figure of the Madonna in the glory of rays with angels.
From the spiral staircase in the bell tower, doors lead to three platforms behind the altar, from which the altar paintings could be exchanged according to the church festivals.
A masterpiece of Jesuit theatricality is the tabernacle , now a reconstruction using some original parts. In the cafeteria there is a retable of a temple-like structure with winding columns on the shoulders of angels. The crowning structure ends in a dome. The cylindrical exposition is remarkable . When the holy of holies was suspended, a mechanism behind the altar was set in motion with a crank that pushed the expositorium forward about 20 centimeters. Two doors opened and a stationary monstrance appeared , above which God the Father was floating with angels in the clouds. Two candlestick angels moved into the tabernacle at the same time, made a quarter turn and turned, presenting, to the Holy of Holies. According to reports from churchgoers who experienced the mechanism before the war, this did not happen without considerable creaking. A fact that should be attributed to maintenance, not to the baroque designers. The mechanics were also reconstructed and are now operated electronically. The cylindrical monstrance and the depiction of God the Father have been preserved in the original and have been reinstalled.
Reliquary area of the choir
Four paintings in richly decorated carved frames join the high altar on both sides of the choir walls. The paintings cover niches in which relics were placed until they were destroyed in the last world war. The pictures were removed on feast days so that the relics could be seen. The paintings that have remained undamaged are attributed to Johann Toussyn and show scenes from the life of Mary and the childhood story of Jesus in Arcadian landscapes.
Communion bench
The communion bench made of red and white marble was the work of the Jesuit Father Peter van der Ka based on a design by Father Adam Graf von Wihlig and, according to the chronogram, was created in 1724. The double-door middle section and the straight side panels were decorated with lush acanthus , angels and symbols. The center of the sense was a gilded chalice with a host of rays, surrounded by clouds and angel heads; next to it tied ears of wheat, grapes and corn on the cob. The communion bench was destroyed in World War II.
Altars of the secondary choirs
The altars of the secondary choirs correspond to one another. They were carved by Valentin Boltz and his workshop. The southern altar of Mary remained largely undestroyed in the last world war, the northern cross altar, on the other hand, was destroyed except for the figures that had been removed prematurely; Today, like the marble cladding of the northern side choir, it is copied from the undestroyed counterpart on the south side.
According to the inscription, the Marien Altar was donated in 1628 by Franz Wilhelm von Wartenberg , Bishop of Osnabrück. The retable is built on two floors and is flanked by angels up to the crown. The lower main floor forms a niche with a seated Mother of God in a halo from the 14th century surrounded by angels. The niche was only open on feast days, otherwise it was closed with a painting showing the "Assumption of Mary". Above the niche, presented by angels, is the coat of arms of the founder. A painting of the Coronation of Mary on the upper floor . The donor's inscription in the final essay. After removing the overpainting, the partially marbled original version was so well preserved that only small imperfections had to be touched up.
Bells
Seven bells hang on two floors in the east tower . The main ringing of the four big bells is in the bell house behind the acoustic arcades; the three smaller bells are on the floor above. The two world wars left only the large bell of Mary of the once six-part peal ; it is one of the few surviving works by the Mainz foundryman Johannes Reutter and thus claims special monument value. The Ignatius and Franciscus Xaverius bells were cast in acoustic and iconographic style based on the previous bells, also created by Reutter. A shard of these historic bells is kept inside the church. Incidentally, the widow of cast steel manufacturer Jacob Mayer donated four cast steel bells in 1882.
|
No. |
Surname |
Casting year |
Caster |
Diameter (mm) |
Mass (kg) |
Percussive ( HT - 1 / 16 ) |
inscription |
| 1 | Maria | 1631 | Johannes Reutter | 1700 | 3400 | h 0 +1 | + MARIA MATER GRATIAE, MATER MISERICODIAE, TU NOS AB HOSTE PROTEGE ET HORA MORTIS SUSCIPE [+] |
| 2 | Ignatius | 1996 | Koninklijke Eijsbouts | 1350 | 1700 | dis 1 ± 0 | S. IGNATIUS QVAS STELLA MATVTINA ET QVASI SOL REFVLGENS SIC ILLE EFFVLSIT IN TEMPLO DEI ECCL. CAP. L. |
| 3 | Franciscus Xaverius |
1996 | Koninklijke Eijsbouts | 1120 | 1000 | f sharp 1 +1 | SANT FRANCISCVS XAVERIUS ISTE ASPERSIT GENTES MVLTAS, REGES CONTINUVERVNT SVPER IPSUM OS ISAIAE L II |
| 4th | Teresia Benedicta a Cruce | 2002 | Koninklijke Eijsbouts | 900 | 473 | ais 1 +1 | VIGILATE QVIA QVA DIEI HORA NON PVTATIS FILIVS HOMINIS VENTVRVS EST. EIJSBOUTS ASTENSIS REFVDIT AD MMII. |
| 5 | Helena | 1966 | Petit & Gebr. Edelbrock | 660 | 190 | dis 2 -1 | + HOLY HELEN, PRAY FOR US [+] |
| 6th | Antony | 1966 | Petit & Gebr. Edelbrock | 540 | 110 | f sharp 2 -3 | + SAINT ANTONY OF PADUA, PRAY FOR US [+] |
| 7th | Augustine | 1966 | Petit & Gebr. Edelbrock | 470 | 60 | gis 2 -4 | + SAINT AUGUSTINE, PLEASE FOR US [+] |
18th to 20th century
After the French revolutionary troops marched in in 1794, this church experienced secularization in the canton of Cologne , which means that it was profaned as a temple of the decade . The building was then acquired by the citizens of Cologne, especially Councilor Laurenz Fürth, and saved from demolition. After the Concordat of 1801 , the church was consecrated again as a house of God. Since 1803 the parish church has been given the patronage of the Assumption .
With the growth of Cologne, the Church of St. Agnes was completed in 1901 , since then it has been the largest church in Cologne after the cathedral.
destruction
During the bombing raids on Cologne from 1941 to 1945, roofs and spiers were destroyed; the vaults of the nave and choir collapsed. The inside burned out completely. The north transept arm with the north apse and the side aisle yoke were hit directly. Two caps of the south transept vault fell off. The masonry of the west facade with the flanking towers, the vaults under the galleries, the upper aisle vaults except for the west yoke of the north aisle and the two western yokes of the south aisle were essentially preserved. But none of the vaults was statically harmless. The window tracery was partially destroyed. Some of the equipment, such as paintings and sculptures, could be relocated in good time. Countless pieces of equipment had to be recovered from the rubble.
Neighborhood (Marzellenstrasse)
On the adjacent building at Marzellestrasse 36, large memorial plaques remind of teachers who worked at the Dreikönigsgymnasium during the Jesuit period or later . As a Jesuit, Friedrich Spee von Langenfeld should be highlighted, the famous opponent of the witch trials.
Friedrich Joseph Haass , student at the "Ecole Central"
Mathias Joseph Scheeben († July 21, 1888)
literature
- Christoph Bellot: Former Jesuit Church St. Mary's Assumption Cologne. Lindenberg 2015.
- Hermann Hipp : Studies on "Post-Gothic" of the 16th and 17th centuries in Germany, Bohemia, Austria and Switzerland. Three volumes. Diss., Tübingen 1979.
- The Jesuit Church of St. Mariae Himmelfahrt in Cologne. Documentation and contributions to the completion of their restoration 1980. Düsseldorf 1982.
- Rudolf Otten: Architecture as a program. Jesuit churches in the Lower Rhine province. Bonn 2000.
Web links
- Digitized archive holdings on the Cologne Jesuits in the digital historical archive Cologne
- Site of the former Jesuit Church of St. Mary of the Assumption in Cologne
Individual evidence
- ↑ Illustration and brief description of the communion bench with the inscription “ Ecce panis angelorum ”: image field 1 ; Image field 2 (bildindex.de)
- ^ Gerhard Hoffs: Bell music of Catholic churches in Cologne . Pp. 148-152, PDF (2.4 MB). ( Memento of the original from April 28, 2014 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.
- ^ Ulrich S. Soénius (Ed.), Jürgen Wilhelm (Ed.): Kölner Personen-Lexikon. Greven, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-7743-0400-0 , p. 353.
Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 35 ″ N , 6 ° 57 ′ 22 ″ E