St. Nicolai (Wyk auf Föhr)
The St. Nicolai Church in Wyk auf Föhr is a Romanesque church building from the 13th century with Gothic and Baroque extensions. It is located in Boldixum , a district of Wyks. Since the Reformation on Föhr in the years 1526 to 1530 it has been a Protestant church.
Building history
The Church of St. Nicolai is the youngest church building after the two other medieval churches on Föhr, the St. Johannis Church in Nieblum and the Church of St. Laurentii in Süderende . It was first mentioned in a document in 1240 AD. Before that, the area to which the places Boldixum and Wrixum belonged and to which Wyk auf Föhr also came from around 1601, was looked after from Nieblum.
In 1509 St. Nicolai was officially confirmed as an independent parish church.
history
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 . St. Nicolai, like the church of St. Johannis, belonged to the eastern part of the island, while St. Laurentii was the spiritual center of the western part. Notwithstanding this separation, the Reformation of the Lutheran Confession was introduced in both parts.
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In 1426 AD, the church was the meeting place of councilors from several parts of the country who agreed on the formulation of Siebenhardenbelichtung , an early Frisian piece of legislation. In it the legal norms of the seven Frisian settled Harden in the Uthlanden in the Duchy of Schleswig (South Jutland) were fixed in writing for the first time.
location
The church is located in the middle of a church cemetery in the Wyker district of Boldixum. 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 the St. Nicolai Church and its two sister churches, which rise above the flat landscape.
Namesake
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The church was consecrated to Saint Nicholas of Myra in the pre-Reformation period . He was venerated by the old church as a saint and helper in need and was the patron saint of children and sailors. He died in Lycia in the 4th century AD , his signs are the crosier and the book. Even after the Reformation on Föhr in 1530, no renaming was made, although the Protestant denomination does not recognize the veneration of saints to the extent of the pre-Reformation church.
Figure of St. Nicholas
The patron saint of the church, Nikolaus von Myra, is present to the worshipers in the form of a wooden sculpture, which is in the nave to the left of the altar area on the north pillar of the choir arch. The figure is a valuable inventory item in the church and was created around 1300. The saint is colored and depicted as a rather young man with a majestic gesture of blessing and warning. His bishop's cloak is artfully folded.
building
The medieval structure of the church is characterized by a high tower, an elongated nave , the detached square choir and a low apse . All components are made of brick .
The tower and the side extensions (such as the porch from the 19th century) were not part of the original equipment. However, as it is today, the entire complex was already 38 meters long. The apse still has the arched windows typical of the Romanesque , while the windows of the choir and nave are already pointed, which heralds the transition to Gothic. The windows on the south side of the building were later changed to allow more daylight into the church. The reason for this measure is the evangelical design of the service, in which the parishioners have a large share in the liturgy by singing and praying, for which they must also be able to read the hymn book.
Two entrances for the worshipers are arranged opposite one another: the portal on the south side was reserved for men, the north side for women.
Extensions
The tower overhanging the flat landscape was added in the 15th century and crowned with a gable roof. The masonry of the tower is not structured and unadorned, it has been repaired several times over the centuries and stabilized with iron anchors. In 1930 the west side of the tower, which is particularly exposed to the harsh North Sea weather, was faced again.
In the late Middle Ages a vestibule was placed in front of the entrance south of the choir. The house was originally used for laying out corpses and now serves as a sacristy .
A side aisle was added to the north side of the building around 1700 in order to accommodate the rapidly growing number of parishioners. Regardless of the unadorned, untypically simple design of the extension for the baroque period , the community had to pay the construction costs for years. The barrel vault of the north extension is a wooden construction that was plastered and originally painted with a representation of paradise.
The gallery in the aisle on the north side and the organ gallery built in 1678 have been preserved from the built-in gallery , which was supposed to help accommodate the growing number of churchgoers.
Interior
The interior is mainly characterized by colorful paintwork. The nave is three times as long as it is wide and divided into three square bays. Arches and vaults begin at a height of about two meters, the vaults are made of narrowing rings and plastered.
Extensive interior restoration work began in 1969, during which the white interior paint was to be renewed. The original painting from the 13th century was discovered and could be restored; however, the restoration had to be repeated twice in the following years.
The belt and shield arches are in black, white and red tones. All arches are additionally decorated with long-stemmed five-petalled flowers.
The seating arrangement with three bench blocks without a central aisle dates back to the Reformation period, as did the drawn-in galleries, which helped to reduce the shortage of space for the large community. The seating was renewed in 1832, the painting dates from 1970, whereby the color scheme is borrowed from old illustrations.
altar
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According to a church chronicle from 1631, the church had five altars in the pre-Reformation period, which have not been preserved. In 1643 today's altar was erected, which was created by Johannes Schnitger from Stedesand . The altarpiece, which shows pictures and scenes from the life of Jesus Christ , can be assigned to the early Baroque period from the time of its creation, but still bears features of the late Renaissance . It is divided into three parts, with the middle section being rectangular and the two side parts being upright. The middle field of the altarpiece is reserved for the representation of the Last Supper , which is an exception in terms of Protestant altar iconography; this space is usually reserved for the crucifixion scene. The Lord's Supper is the only one of the depictions that is done in color, while the other 13 scenes are painted in a yellowish-white color, which is supposed to be reminiscent of marble.
- Description of the scenes
Four scenes from the Passion of Christ and four representations of the evangelists frame the middle section: Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane , the crowning of thorns, the way to the cross and the crucifixion. On the side panels there are four other representations that are related to Christian festivals: Annunciation (the angel with Mary), Christmas (nativity scene with adoring shepherds), Easter (resurrection of Christ), Pentecost (outpouring of the Holy Spirit). Finally, above the center section of the altar there is an ascension scene that is assigned to the feast of the Ascension of Christ .
The representations on the sides of the altarpiece are flanked by two witnesses of the covenant between God and man: on the left is Moses (Old Testament), on the right is John the Baptist (New Testament).
The altar top - in the size of the middle section - bears an altar base, a predella , on which the representations in Low German are assigned central statements of salvation history.
organ
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The organ was installed in the organ loft built in 1678. It was built in 1735 by Johann Hinrich Klapmeyer from Glückstadt , who was a student of Arp Schnitger , as a one-manual work with lateral pedal towers. A Zimbelstern , with which a fine ringing sound can be produced, is still in use today. Some registers from Klapmeyer have been preserved, while the pedal towers have been lost.
The organ was rebuilt in 1955-56 by the workshop of Rudolf von Beckerath Orgelbau (Hamburg) in such a way that the baroque organ with its original case became a positive back , which was expanded to include a new main work . The now two-manual organ has 25 registers and a pedal .
pulpit
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Around 1630 a new pulpit in the style of the late renaissance had already been erected. The artist is unknown, but he has furnished several churches in North Friesland with pulpits. The carvings on the pulpit are in color, on the half pillars of the corners, female figures symbolize the Christian virtues . The surrounding base is adorned with Low German Bible quotations in gold on a black background. The individual scenes in the pulpit are fitted into lavishly decorated frames crowned with a shell shape and depict scenes from the life of Christ: birth, baptism, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension and last judgment.
Baptismal font
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It is the only item in the inventory that is part of the initial equipment of the church. It is a limestone baptism made on the island of Gotland . From the 12th to the 14th century, the entire North and Baltic Sea area was supplied with baptismal fonts. This baptismal font is not figurative with architectural pointed arches.
Originally, the baptized were immersed three times in the lead-sheet-lined cavity of the stone, invoking God, Christ and the Holy Spirit. A new church order in the Schleswig-Holstein area changed this practice: from 1542, the head was only watered three times, which meant that a baptismal bowl was hung in the opening of the baptismal font, which had to absorb much less baptismal water. A baptismal bowl made of brass from the 16th century still provides this service today.
Confectionery drawer
At the corner of the north annex on the left in the nave there is a wooden drawer with a flap, a confectioner's drawer with three slots. Here the parishioners from the districts of Wyk, Boldixum and Wrixum could post notes with their names if they wished to attend confession and the Lord's Supper.
Offering box
At the entrance to the choir there is an offering box covered with iron ribbons that receives donations from visitors.
graveyard
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As in the other two church cemeteries in Föhr, the cemetery of the parish of St. Nicolai also has many speaking tombstones from the Baroque period, which have earned their artistic reputation through splendid ornamentation and artistic font design. Most of the old stones have been removed from their original location and have now been placed on the main paths and under the protection of the church roof.
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 fantastically lavish, 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.
literature
- St. Nicolai on Föhr. (= Great Architectural Monuments , Issue 385.) 2000.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Insel-Bote : New Doctrine fell on fertile ground , accessed on November 6, 2016.
- ↑ Information about the organ ( Memento of the original from July 31, 2009 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. (as of October 29, 2009).
Coordinates: 54 ° 41 ′ 44.9 ″ N , 8 ° 33 ′ 1.5 ″ E