St. Paulus (Worms)

St. Paulus (painting by Albert Emil Kirchner , around 1855)

The St. Paulus Church in Worms has an eventful history of over a thousand years. Today it is the monastery church of the Worms Dominican Convent .

prehistory

Archaeological window in front of the east choir of St. Paul with Roman-medieval foundations of the first, eastern, inner city wall

At this point in the city area stood the Salierburg , based on the original eastern wall of the city fortifications on the Rhine side . In the Bauhofgasse , directly in front of the east choir of St. Paulus, an archaeological window is open that shows the Roman-medieval foundations of this first, eastern, inner city wall.

history

Bishop Burchard von Worms built a collegiate church on the foundations of the Salierburg from 1002 . At that time it was a three-aisled Romanesque pillar basilica with three apses in the east and two round towers in the west. In the 13th century the east choir was converted into a five-sided apse. The exterior of the choir apse of St. Paul is a somewhat simplified copy of the late Romanesque choir apse of the Fritzlar Cathedral , which was built around 1080–1195 and was also built by Worms builders. The towers received roofs in the Byzantine style of the Jerusalem Church of the Holy Sepulcher . The monastery buildings with a Gothic cloister were built north of the church . In 1689 the church was destroyed in the Palatine War of Succession and rebuilt as a baroque hall church at the beginning of the 18th century . In 1797 the monastery was abolished by the French, and the church was first used as a warehouse and from 1880 as the city museum under the name Paulusmuseum. In 1929 it became the Dominican monastery church. During the Second World War, the church was badly damaged by air raids and the baroque ceiling paintings were destroyed. In 1947 it was restored and in 1999 it was thoroughly renovated.

In 1730, the historically significant Auxiliary Bishop of Worms, Johann Baptist Gegg, was buried there and received a beautiful epitaph that perished on February 21, 1945 when the Paulus Church was destroyed due to excessive heat. However, it is photographically secured. During excavations in 1928, Bishop Gegg's grave was found in the choir of the church, which was made of bricks. A skeleton with remains of priestly clothing was found, which was buried again in 1929 on the left behind the newly built high altar.

construction

Layout

A specialty of the architecture are the two round towers built around the year 1100 with stone domes in oriental style (three similar church towers in Rheinhessen are called Heidenturm ). The Romanesque westwork dates from the 13th century. The bronze west portal is a scaled-down copy of the Bernward door of Hildesheim Cathedral from 1015. The baroque high altar in the choir was created in 1718 for the parish church of St. Peter von Herrnsheim and was moved to the Paulus church in 1928. Relics of the martyrs Gratia, Castus and Gaudiosus can be found on the altar island in the front of the nave . On the pillars of the choir are two life-size plaster figures from the middle of the 20th century, Paul on the right , Dominic on the left . The Way of the Cross in the westwork, painted around 1935 by the Dominican Father Lukas Knackfuß , brother of the history painter Hermann Knackfuß and brother of the archaeologist Hubert Knackfuß and nephew of the church painter Joseph Anton Nikolaus Settegast , shows the story of the Passion in the scenery of old Worms.

When it was used as a museum, the building was decorated by the artist Lorenz Gedon .

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  Westwork

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  inside view

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  Organ prospectus

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  Epitaph Bishop Gegg, destroyed in 1945

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See also

• List of churches and monasteries in Rhineland-Palatinate
• Church building with a similar tower:
  • St. Bonifatius (Alsheim) in Alsheim
  • Allerheiligen (Dittelsheim) in Dittelsheim-Heßloch
  • St. Viktor Church in Guntersblum

literature

in alphabetical order by authors / editors

• Jürgen Keddigkeit / Martina Rommel / Mathias Unterman: Worms, St. Paul. Kollegiatstift (subsidiary monastery of the cathedral). In: Palatine monastery dictionary. Handbook of the Palatinate Monasteries, Stifts and Coming, Vol. 5 (Contributions to Palatinate History, Vol. 26.5), ed. by Jürgen Keddigkeit / Mathias Untermann / Sabine Klapp / Charlotte Lagemann / Hans Ammerich. Kaiserslautern 2019, pp. 620–661, ISBN 978-3-927754-86-7
• Josef Kleine Bornhorst (Ed.): St. Paulus Worms 1002-2002: Kollegiatstift - Museum - Dominikanerkloster , Society for Middle Rhine Church History, 2002, ISBN 978-3929135367
• Ludwig Baron Döry : The former Herrnsheim high altar, now in the St. Pauluskirche in Worms . In: Der Wormsgau 13 (1979/1981), pp. 113-125. ( as PDF )
• Hans-Jürgen Kotzur : The riddle of the Rheinhessen »Heidentürme« . In: Lebendiges Rheinland-Pfalz 40 (2003), Heft III – IV, pp. 2–48. Online version at regionalgeschichte.net
• Georg Dehio : Handbook of German Art Monuments , Rhineland-Palatinate / Saarland, Deutscher Kunstverlag, edition from 1972; Pp. 1020-1023

Web links

Commons : St. Paulus (Worms)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• dominikaner-worms.de
• Monasteries and monasteries in Rhineland-Palatinate: Collegiate monastery St. Paul
• Dominican Monastery of St. Paul on worms.de
• Dominican monastery church St. Paulus in Worms at regionalgeschichte.net

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hyacinth Holland:  Gedon, Lorenz . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 49, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1904, pp. 258-263.

Coordinates: 49 ° 37 ′ 50.5 ″  N , 8 ° 21 ′ 56.1 ″  E