St. Paulus (Hildesheim)

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St. Paul

St. Paul is a former Dominican - monastery church in Hildesheim . It is located in the southern part of the city center (Neue Straße 21) and today houses the St. Paulus nursing home of the Sisters of Mercy of St. Vincent .

history

Bishop Konrad II (1221–46) had given the monks of the order of preachers a piece of land on the south-east wall of the old town (since the union with the new town Neue Straße ). The convent buildings, which are no longer preserved, and the first monastery church with the patronage of the Apostle Paul, popular with the Dominicans, were built there . As one of the earliest Dominican monasteries in Central Europe, the founding of Hildesheim was recognized in 1233 by the general chapter of the order.

Bricked west portal with the bishop's seal of St. Albertus Magnus

The Hildesheim branch was of central importance for the Dominican order of Teutonia . In the 1230s, St. Albertus Magnus stayed here twice for several months and organized the philosophical and theological teaching. The first provincial chapter took place in Hildesheim in 1244 .

Around 1400 the old monastery church was demolished and replaced by a three-nave Gothic hall church with a four-bay main nave and a flat wooden ceiling. In 1428 a roof turret was added. The 25 m long choir , under which the crypt was located, was not completed until 1480.

The Hildesheim Dominican monastery was dissolved in the course of the Reformation . The church became a Lutheran parish church in 1546 . In 1806 it was profaned and then used as a parade house and granary. From 1870 to 1943 it was the city's festival and concert hall after considerable structural changes had been made.

In March 1945, the Hildesheim subcamp of the Neuengamme concentration camp was set up in the town hall and housed around 500 Jews from Hungary who were used as forced laborers on the Reichsbahn . On February 13, 1945, St. Paulus's roof was severely damaged when an air mine detonated on the Innerste not far from Johanniswiese . During the great air raid on Hildesheim on March 22, 1945, St. Paulus burned down completely, and all subsequent fixtures collapsed. Only the surrounding walls and the eight pillars of the main nave remained. The rising masonry of the ruin was partially demolished, the rest secured. This condition lasted until the late 1970s.

In 1956, the Congregation received the ruined plot of land immediately adjacent to the mother house when the city of Hildesheim exchanged land. When the congregation planned to build a retirement home and demolish the ruin in the 1970s, the city of Hildesheim determined that the ruin was worth preserving, so that the construction of the retirement home was combined with the rebuilding of the external shape of the church. From the spring of 1979 onwards, St. Paulus was rebuilt as a modern nursing home by the order of the Sisters of Mercy, whose motherhouse is adjacent, according to plans by the architect Franz Sommer. On December 8, 1981, it was inaugurated as a nursing home for the elderly. The design of the house chapel was carried out by the Hildesheim artist Paul König (1932–2015).

architecture

The exterior construction made of sandstone blocks largely shows the appearance of the Gothic monastery church. On the outside, the slender Gothic windows with their pointed arches, the buttresses and the surrounding coffin cornice are particularly striking , as are the transverse roofs of the nave. Above the main portal of the east central aisle, a coat of arms medallion commemorates the Order of the Sisters of Mercy. In the area of ​​the rebuilt west facade, another, but bricked-up portal can be seen. Noteworthy are the newly created figures of saints, which are located on consoles on the buttresses. The interior is divided into two floors. The house chapel is located on the upper floor of the end of the choir.

See also

literature

  • Annemarie and Andreas Böhm: Churches, monasteries and chapels. A little Hildesheim art guide , Hildesheim 1991, ISBN 3-87065-590-9 , p. 60
  • Hermann Seeland: Churches destroyed in the World War ... , Hildesheim 1948, p. 35
  • Christiane Segers-Glocke: Monuments in Lower Saxony , vol. 14.1, Hameln 2007, p. 133f.

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Herbert Reyer and Herbert Obenaus (eds.), History of the Jews in Hildesheimer Land , Hildesheim 2003, ISBN 348711867X , p. 90
  2. ↑ More single rooms in a lively environment. In: KirchenZeitung , edition 45/2016 of November 6, 2016, p. 16
  3. ↑ St. Paulus nursing home for the elderly. In: Vinzenz Inform. Edition 1/2012

Coordinates: 52 ° 8 ′ 50.9 ″  N , 9 ° 56 ′ 59.1 ″  E