St. Nicholas (Cheb)
The Church of St. Nicholas (Czech: Kostel svatého Mikuláše ) is a three-aisled basilica in Cheb, built in the 13th century .
history
With the city expansion of Eger at the beginning of the 13th century, the church of St. Nicholas was built as a Romanesque parish church north of the market square. The first written mention of the church relates to the year 1239, when one of the side altars was supposedly inaugurated. In 1258 the emperor ceded the patronage rights to the Teutonic Order , which kept it until the end of the 16th century.
The lower parts of both towers and the west portal are mainly preserved from the original building. After a fire in 1270, the old apse was replaced by an early Gothic presbytery . In the middle of the 15th century wealthy citizens got involved in the renovation of the church, which was realized between 1456 and 1476. The municipal works foreman Jorgen (Jörg, Georg) von Eger and later Eberhard (Erhard) Bauer von Aistel (Eichstadt, Aichstätt) (“Steinmetz von Aistel”) built a monumental three-aisled hall with 14 altars, 50 meters long, 30 meters wide and 21 meters Height, which master Lukas of Nuremberg painted.
From 1658 until his death in 1678, Johann Georg Franz Braun , the author of Ave Maria zart (1675), was cantor to St. Nicholas.
After the fire in 1742, two towers with baroque domes were raised according to a design by the local master builder Balthasar Neumann and decorated with a baroque onion roof. After a fire in 1809, the church received a historicist interior in neo-Gothic style ( altar , choir stalls and organ ).
In a US bomb attack on April 20, 1945, the Balthasar Neumann church towers burned down and were not reconstructed. The church was given its present form after restoration work in 1966 and thanks to a city foundation in summer 2008.
Facility
A Romanesque baptismal font and six Gothic sculptures on both side altars have been preserved from the old furnishings of the church. There is a Gothic tabernacle in the presbytery. There are two Renaissance tombstones in the south porch. Of the remains of the former lavish Baroque furnishings, the large picture Adoration of the Shepherds above the north entrance, the Crucified above the south entrance and a depiction of the transfer of the remains of the Roman martyr Vincent to the church in 1693 are striking. Most of the furnishings, which also include the glass windows and the organ from Martin Zaus' workshop , come from the first (1862/64) and, above all, the second neo-Gothic redesign (1891/94).
St. Nicholas Church with "old" spire
St. Nicholas Church with "new" spire (2008)
Reconstruction of the towers (2008)
pulpit
Organ summer in Cheb
Since 1996, every year in July and August in the St. Nicholas Church Cheb Organ Summer (Chebské Varhanní léto) instead. The director of the festival is the musician Martina Kolarova , who comes from Cheb and lives in Prague . In addition to organ solo concerts, there are organ plus formations such as organ with winds, strings and vocals.
Web links
Coordinates: 50 ° 4 ′ 51 ″ N , 12 ° 22 ′ 13 ″ E