St. Nikolai (Castle near Magdeburg)
The Protestant town church St. Nikolai in Burg bei Magdeburg is a Romanesque town church in the town of Burg bei Magdeburg in Saxony-Anhalt . It belongs to the parish of Our Dear Women and St. Nicolai in Burg in the Elbe-Fläming parish of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany . It is also known as the Lower Church of St. Nicolai and, together with the Upper Church of Our Lady, shapes the cityscape of Burg near Magdeburg with its slender spire helmets .
History and architecture
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The lower church of St. Nikolai was first mentioned as the parish church of the Neustadt in 1186 as a branch church of the upper church of Our Lady in Burg. It was built in the late 12th century as a Romanesque pillar basilica from carefully hewn and jointed granite blocks. Since it has remained essentially unchanged in the spatial image, it is considered one of the most important architectural monuments of this time in Central Germany. The church has a broad transept with two semicircular side apses, to which the main choir, which is square in plan, also has a semicircular apse . Both inside and outside, the building is almost free of structuring and decorative elements and therefore presents itself as a monumental example of a late Romanesque town church.
The interior is determined by the basilica nave on originally seven arcades with large wall surfaces, which, however, were probably loosened up by wall paintings in their original state. The original flat ceiling was replaced in 1606 by a wooden barrel vault with an applied and painted ribbed network; the western pair of arcades was walled up. The choir received a late Gothic cross vault with a depiction of the Agnus dei in the keystone . The transept is only separated from the nave and the choir by a triumphal arch ; There are no transept arches at the crossing to the north and south. The transept arms each have a portal on the north and south side as well as two windows on each side, the side apses each have one window and the main apse three windows. The windows on the front sides of the transept, as well as the choir windows, were replaced by lower, ogival windows.
The west building, which is divided into three parts, was built around the same time as the church in the 12th century. It has two coupled sound openings on each side of the top floor, some of which are provided with sandstone pillars and some are supplemented in brick. On the lower floors it is only lit by three rows of narrow, loopholes-like windows on the west side and therefore appears defensive. Only on the top floor are the towers recognizable from the outside as twin towers and are closed off by slender pointed helmets . The middle part has a tower keeper's apartment on the upper floor and is closed off by a clock bay.
In 1852 the church was restored by master builder Schaeffer from Magdeburg; the organ loft and an organ with a classicist prospect were installed. After a long period of neglect of the entire structure between 1974 and 1985, a restoration was carried out between 1985 and 1990.
Furnishing
The main part of the furnishings is a wooden altarpiece from 1699. It consists of a high two-story column structure with paintings depicting the Last Supper , Gethsemane in the main image and the Crucifixion in the top.
The pulpit is a sandstone work by Michael Spieß from 1607. A fully plastic representation of Moses is the bearer of the pulpit. On the pulpit there are alabaster reliefs in three arched niches, which depict the crucifixion and the kneeling couple of the donors, underneath are alabaster medallions of the four evangelists; the sons and daughters of the donors are depicted on the stair parapet. The pulpit door is framed by columns on high plinths with mask heads. Three brass chandeliers from the 17th and 18th centuries and a large hanging epitaph made of sandstone for Christoph von Eckstett and his wife Ursula von Lossow from the beginning of the 17th century complete the furnishings.
The Romanesque baptism made of limestone from the second half of the 12th century, destroyed in the 19th century, was reconstructed in 2001 using original fragments of the cupah . The other pieces of equipment from the 19th century, a baptism made of cast zinc, the stalls and the organ gallery were created in 1852. The organ was originally a work by Adolf Reubke , but it was renewed around 1900 by Wilhelm Sauer and in 1957 by Schuster . The organ was restored in 1991 by the Groß (Waditz) company and has 30 registers on two manuals and a pedal .
literature
- Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments. Saxony Anhalt I. District of Magdeburg. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-422-03069-7 , pp. 136-138.
- Walter May: City churches in Saxony / Anhalt. 1st edition. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Berlin 1979, pp. 198–199.
Web links
- Website of the parish of Our Dear Women and St. Nicolai in Burg
- The lower church of St. Nikolai in 94 photos
Individual evidence
- ↑ Information about the organ on orgbase.nl. Retrieved July 4, 2019 .
Coordinates: 52 ° 16 ′ 7.4 ″ N , 11 ° 51 ′ 3.8 ″ E