St. Nikolai (Quedlinburg)

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St. Nikolai in Quedlinburg

St. Nikolai in Quedlinburg is the parish church of the Neustadt in Quedlinburg. The church was first mentioned in a document in 1222. It is the oldest church in the Neustadt district. Today it is registered as a cultural monument. It belongs to the evangelical parish of Quedlinburg within the Evangelical Church in Central Germany .

Worth mentioning is the pastor's wife Dorothea Christiane Erxleben , whose husband Johann Christian Erxleben was the pastor of the church in the 18th century. She was the first German female doctor to receive her doctorate from the University of Halle in 1754 .

Building history

View north side of the Nikolaikirche (March 2017)
as a spherical panorama

The building is on stilts and Ellernblöcken (from Ellern or alder wood) have been built in marshy areas. Originally it was a three-aisled Romanesque basilica . In its current form it is early Gothic in the west building , while the other parts are late Gothic . The choir was added in the 13th, further extensions followed in the 15th century.

The hall church has variously structured pillars, a single-nave choir and twin towers. The towers are 72 meters high, the bell tower (without clock) can now be climbed. After numerous lightning strikes, they received a lightning rod in 1878. The so-called Saiger tower attached to the north of the north tower is intended to indicate the north direction. It dates from the Baroque and contains the striking mechanism for the tower clock. The towers were damaged on November 13, 1972 by the hurricane "Quimburga", the so-called Lower Saxony hurricane . Both spire helmets threatened to fall. The residents had to leave their homes for a few days. It was discussed to demolish the towers. But from 1974 to 1980 the towers were renovated, covered with copper , and the weather vanes and buttons were newly gilded. On that occasion, a new clockwork was installed in the north tower , the old one could no longer be used. The central building between the towers was reduced to its old height.

On December 1, 2013, a piece of the vault rib in the south aisle came loose , whereupon the ceiling had to be spanned up to the high choir and the church had to be temporarily closed. The parish registers indicated that vault ribs had repeatedly come loose. Ultrasonic measurements showed that the historic, iron connecting dowels were corroded. Other unfavorable factors were the soft sandstone and the unstable subsoil. For these reasons, work began in 2017 to replace all rib stones made of more stable Warthauer sandstone.

To the east of the church, convent 20a, is the parish rectory .

Furnishing

Stained glass window
left choir window outside
right choir window outside
High altar after restoration
Heidfeld epitaph from 1661

A tradition from the construction time of the church tells of a legend according to which a local shepherd found a rich treasure, which he made available for the building of this church. It is therefore also known as the “Shepherd's Church”. Two shepherd figures adorn two corners of a tower. Due to the statics, these figures had to be taken down from time to time, were placed inside the church and are now back in their old places.

Most of the decorative equipment comes from the baroque era . The wooden altar, over ten meters high and seven meters wide, is noteworthy . It was made in 1712 by the carver Jobst Heinrich Lessen from Goslar . It shows the scenes of the Last Supper , Crucifixion , Descent from the Cross and Resurrection of Jesus . The altar table is probably of Romanesque origin. The pulpit dates from 1731, the Daufengel from 1693. A wooden epitaph made in 1661 by Mayor Timotheus Heidfeld and his wife Catharina and an early Gothic cup of communion can be seen in the interior again since 1928. The baptismal font is medieval.

At the beginning of the 20th century, some of the windows were provided with glass paintings ( glass painting Ferd. Müller, Quedlinburg ).

After a fire on Christmas Eve 1996 (triggered by a defective bench heater), the church had to be extensively renovated because the interior was sooty, the windows were damaged by partly melted tin and part of the ceiling came off. In the course of the renovation, the heating was replaced by a convection heating system and a toilet was installed on the outside of the northern choir. Most of the costs are raised by donations from Quedlinburg private individuals and companies, which is why the renovation takes many years.

organ

The organ

The organ comes from the Hausneindorfer organ building company under the direction of Ernst Röver at the time . The console has two manuals and a pedal . The organ, which was rebuilt several times, now has 30 registers , couplings are I / P, II / P; MK I / II; fixed registries are , , and Tutti a button. The organ has a pneumatic action . The organ prospectus comes from the predecessor organ Johann Friedrich Schulzes from Paulinzella, built in 1848 .

Bells

Of the once at least five chimes, two are left. The large Magdalene Bell, cast in 1290, was re-cast in 1873 and destroyed in the First World War . The two remaining church bells hang in the medieval wooden belfry. The big bell from 1333 is the oldest dated in the city - and one of the oldest in Saxony-Anhalt - and shows four rare, high-quality bell carvings . In addition, a bell for the quarter- beats and a bowl for the full hours hang in the Seiger tower on the helmet of the north tower.

Bell jar Casting year Diameter (mm) Mass (kg, approx.) Chime
Big bell 1333 1,603 3,000 d 1 + 3 / 16
Silver or baptismal bell 1467 1,170 1,300 fis 1 + 2 / 16
Hour bell 1516 974 300 as 1
Quarter-hour bell 15th century 365 27 c sharp 3

Bell scratch drawings

Some bells have rare, art-historically significant carved bell drawings , which are honored in a work by the art historian Ingrid Schulze.

gallery

  • St. Nikolai vom Mathildenbrunnen (1966)

  • St. Nikolai vom Mathildenbrunnen (2015)

  • Saiger turret with the striking mechanism for the tower clock

  • Baptismal angel (1696) above baptismal font (south aisle)

  • Organ console

  • View from the south

Pastor

  • 1539–1542: Marcus Scultetus
  • 1542–1553: Johannes Botho
  • 1553–1565: Andreas Ernst
  • 1565–1593: Marcus Scultetus
  • 1593–1599: Johann Arndt (1590?)
  • 1599-1613: Bartholdus Valstein
  • 1613–1626: Johannes Steuerwald
  • 1626–1634: Christian Fessel
  • 1635–1636: Nikolaus Meißner
  • 1637–1663: Seth Calvisius I.
  • 1664–1676: Christoph Bencke
  • 1677–1684: Seth Calvisius II.
  • 1486–1719: Albert Meinecke
  • 1719–1723: Joachim Quenstedt
  • 1723–1731: Justus Jacobus Schulze
  • 1732–1733: Georg Heinrich Ribow
  • 1733–1756: Caspar Julius Wunderlich
  • 1756–1773: Johann August Meermann
  • 1773-1780: Johann Jacob Rambach
  • 1780–1799: Johann August Hermes
  • 1799–1805: Johann Andreas Hasse
  • 1806–1824: Johann Albert Christian Schwalbe
  • 1824–1833: Karl Gerhard Haupt
  • 1834–1840: Johann August Wilhelm Besser
  • 1841–1846: Karl Rohde
  • 1847–1881: Heinrich Ferdinand Theune
  • 1882–1904: Karl Erbstein
  • 1905–1925: Martin Klewitz
  • 1925–1950: Willi Meyer
  • 1950–1952: Günter Baron
  • 1952–1969: Gerhard Müller
  • 1970–1985: Horst Hofmann
  • 1985–1991: Johannes Schulz
  • 1991–: Peter Heyroth

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Carola Nathan: Crash in Advent . All vault ribs of the Quedlinburg Nikolaikirche have to be renewed. In: German Foundation for Monument Protection (Hrsg.): Monuments . Magazine for monument culture in Germany. No. 4 . Monuments publications, 2017, ISSN  0941-7125 , p. 23 .
  2. ↑ Carola Nathan: Crash in Advent . All vault ribs of the Quedlinburg Nikolaikirche have to be renewed. In: German Foundation for Monument Protection (Hrsg.): Monuments . Magazine for monument culture in Germany. No. 4 . Monuments publications, 2017, ISSN  0941-7125 , p. 24 f .
  3. ↑ Carola Nathan: Crash in Advent . All vault ribs of the Quedlinburg Nikolaikirche have to be renewed. In: German Foundation for Monument Protection (Hrsg.): Monuments . Magazine for monument culture in Germany. No. 4 . Monuments publications, 2017, ISSN  0941-7125 , p. 26 .
  4. ↑ http://www.baufachinformation.de/denkmalpflege.jsp?md=2003097118092  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.baufachinformation.de  
  5. ↑ Quedlinburg: Die Super7 ( Memento from March 8, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), accessed on February 3, 2013
  6. ↑ Uwe Pape (Ed.): Lexikon Norddeutscher Orgelbauer, Volume 1: Thuringia and Umgehung, p. 275. Pape Verlag, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-921140-86-4
  7. ↑ The art historian Ingrid Schulze has a separate chapter on this (from page 27, although she assumes the bell was lost in World War II ) in her book Scratched Drawings by Laymen - Drawings by Medieval Sculptors and Painters? Figural bell scratch drawings from the late 13th century to around 1500 in central and northern Germany. Leipzig 2006, ISBN 978-3-939404-95-8
  8. ↑ Constanze Treuber: Cast diversity . Hinstorff, Rostock 2007, pp. 119–121.
  9. ^ Ingrid Schulze: Incised drawings by lay hands - drawings by medieval sculptors and painters? Figural bell scratch drawings from the late 13th century to around 1500 in central and northern Germany. Leipzig 2006, ISBN 978-3-939404-95-8

Web links

Commons : St. Nikolai  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 51 ° 47 ′ 22.6 "  N , 11 ° 8 ′ 58.3"  E