St. Marien and Andreas (Rathenow)
The Protestant town church St. Marien and Andreas is a Gothic brick church in Rathenow in the Havelland district in the state of Brandenburg . It belongs to the parish of Rathenow in the parish of Nauen-Rathenow of the Evangelical Church Berlin-Brandenburg-Silesian Upper Lusatia and is also known as Rathenow City Church . After severe destruction in World War II , the restoration is not yet complete. It can be viewed by appointment in the community office.
history
Building history
The late Romanesque predecessor of today's church dates from the early 13th century and was already built in brick. It was a cruciform pillar basilica with a short nave , a presumably square choir with a main apse and a transverse rectangular west tower . Only parts of the transept of this structure have survived. The new building began in the second half of the 14th century and comprised the hall choir with a polygonal end consisting of seven sides of a dodecagon. Two chapels on the straight choir bay also originate from this construction phase. In the years 1517 to 1562, according to an inscription on the north-western portal, the nave was converted into a late Gothic hall church by master Andreas Lindemann, in which the aisle walls were moved into line with the former transept facades.
The early neo-Gothic west tower was built to a design by Carl Wilhelm Redtel between 1824 and 1828 in place of the original west building. A more elaborate design from 1821 by Karl Friedrich Schinkel was discarded.
Destruction and rebuilding
On April 27, 1945, the church, which was hit by incendiary grenades, burned down with large parts of the inventory down to the surrounding walls. The tower was badly damaged by artillery fire. The vaults of the central nave, the choir and the Lady Chapel were destroyed. The pillars of the choir are also lost.
Between 1950 and 1959 the nave was temporarily repaired with a flat ceiling over the central nave and separated from the choir by a wall. The western yokes of the aisle vaults have been rebuilt as cross vaults , different from their original state . From 1990 to 1998 the choir was restored in a reduced form. The central nave vaults were rebuilt in 2010, the vault in the Lady Chapel in 2011.
The damaged upper floor of the tower had to be removed in 1972. In 2001 the tower was restored. The vaults in the choir are to be restored in the future.
architecture
Exterior
The exterior of the four-bay, three-aisled nave has a simple design with four-part windows; a portal with flanking circular screens is arranged in the north and south walls in the second bay from the east. The front sides of the original transept, which were structured with a cross-arch frieze and a German ribbon , can be clearly seen in the masonry of the first yoke from the east. In this yoke there is a rectangular framed step portal . The northern one is pointedly arched, the southern arched.
The exterior of the choir has been largely restored and is structured by originally three-part windows, buttresses and a tracery frieze under the main cornice. The outer walls of the choir start from the former semicircular side apses of the transept. These seams are covered by two choir corner chapels. The southern St. Andrew's Chapel is an irregular octagonal polygon with a steep, massive pyramid roof and is used as a sacristy . The northern Marienkapelle is rectangular with a semicircle to the north and forms a vestibule with a stepped pointed arch portal. The upper floor with rich panel architecture between finely profiled pillars was largely renewed in 1907 and originally also has a massive conical roof. The neo-Gothic , square west tower shows pointed arched openings and stepped corner buttresses and a restored upper floor of the tower with a pointed helmet .
Interior
The interior is a spacious hall with richly profiled arcades on round pillars and associated wall pillars, which are adorned with rising spiral bands made of glazed bricks. The long and west walls of the side aisles are structured by segmented arched niches . In the former east wall of the transept, the late Romanesque triumphal arch is still preserved, which is flanked by the side apses in the side aisles. The side aisles originally had parallel rib vaults in the three western bays and star vaults in the eastern bays, while the central nave bays had eight-part rib vaults with apex stars. In the choir, there were originally star vaults in the central nave and three-beam vaults in the access. The choir pillars and vaults are no longer there. The southern St. Andrew's Chapel is closed with a ribbed vault on low consoles.
Furnishing
Of the old furnishings, the 19th century altar, with the exception of the older altar painting by Bernhard Rode , the baroque pulpit from 1709, the organ front from 1778 and the renaissance galleries were destroyed.
A three-part winged altar from around 1380, which was restored between 1922 and 1925, is preserved. In the shrine he shows five nobly designed and composed carved figures of Mary and four female saints, which are interpreted as the Virgines capitales . Angels are painted in the spandrels of the crowning eyelash . On the inside of the wings, six apostles are depicted in tempera painting by a master under Bohemian influence (similar to the predella of the Bohemian altar in Brandenburg Cathedral ).
A large oil painting with Christ before the High Council from around 1700 by a Low German painter can be compared to a painting in the church in Stölln. The already mentioned altar painting by Bernhard Rode from 1779 shows the offering of Christ in the temple .
A particular treasure is a late Romanesque gold-plated silver chalice, which probably came from a workshop in Lower Saxony. The engraved round shields of the cup are thematically related to the relief medallions on the foot.
The epitaph for the town clerk Andreas Nesen and his wife Anna from 1571 shows a panel with the parable of the good Samaritan and the oldest view of Rathenow over an inscription cartouche; on the predelle picture the family of the deceased is shown kneeling on both sides next to the Salvator mundi .
A bronze bell with an inscription band was cast around 1400. On the north wall of the church there are four matching sandstone epitaphs from the mid-18th century with rich rocailles and putti .
literature
- Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments. Brandenburg. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-422-03054-9 , pp. 911–913.
- Götz Eckardt (Hrsg.): Fates of German monuments in the Second World War. Volume 1. Henschelverlag Art and Society, Berlin 1980, p. 170.
- Dirk Schumann (Ed.): Rathenow, St.-Marien-Andreas-Kirche . Photographs Gregor Peda. Passau: Art Publishing House Peda, 2015
Web links
- Entry in the monument database of the State of Brandenburg
- Romanesque routes in Berlin and Brandenburg - St. Marien and Andreas Rathenow
- Website of the parish Rathenow
- Support group for the reconstruction of the Sankt-Marien-Andreas-Church in Rathenow eV
Individual evidence
- ↑ Information on the pages of the support group for old churches in Brandenburg. Retrieved August 29, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Götz Eckardt (ed.): Fates of German architectural monuments in the Second World War. Volume 1. Henschelverlag Art and Society, Berlin 1980, p. 170.
- ↑ Information about the town church Rathenow on the website of the community. Retrieved January 12, 2018 .
Coordinates: 52 ° 36 ′ 24.7 " N , 12 ° 19 ′ 55.6" E