St. Stephan (Constance)

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St. Stephan from the southwest
St. Stephan from the cathedral tower
Interior
Baroque sculptures and ceiling paintings in the choir
Nave pillar, Apostle Peter, 16th century
North wall with epitaph of the Cologne city treasurer Adolf Dominicus Bruwer, who died during the council (1414–1418). The Latin text of the inscription in high Gothic fracture on white Rorschach sandstone commemorates the deceased: In the year of Lord 1415 on June 28 at the time of the general council, the honorable man, Mr. Adolf Dominikus Bruwer, treasurer of the holy city of Cologne, died and was here buried .
Obergadenwand, Gospel images and saints, early 20th century

St. Stephan , also called Stephanskirche , is a former collegiate and parish church in the old town of Konstanz . It is a three-aisled basilica with a side tower next to the transition from the nave to the choir. The Stephanskirche is considered to be the oldest church in Constance. Today it belongs to the Catholic pastoral care unit in Konstanz-Altstadt.

History and architecture

Roman times

The origins of St. Stephan go back to the late Roman times . The square is south of the first settlement and later cathedral district . It is believed that the earliest building was either a secular market and court hall or a cemetery church. The church with the patronage of St. Stephen was already present when the diocese of Constance was founded at the end of the 6th century. It could have been a wooden structure.

Early middle ages

The oldest written mention of St. Stephen's Church comes from the year 680 ( Gallus -Vita). A regulated clerical community had been settled at St. Stephan since around 900 ( Kollegiatstift ). The pre-Romanesque church was damaged or destroyed in the Hungarian invasion in 926 and was probably restored under Bishop Noting . At that time, the church, which was still outside the walled city, already had a market.

High Middle Ages (Romanesque)

Since the 11th century, the market and craft settlement around St. Stephan grew strongly and was incorporated into the city. The collegiate church was now also the parish church of the largest parish in Constance. The conversion of the old church into a Romanesque basilica around 1130 took this into account. This had its portal on the main street on the east side; the square choir with the main altar was in the west. The central nave was roughly the size it is today; the aisles were half as wide.

Late Middle Ages (Gothic)

From the 13th century, St. Stephan was opposite the episcopal cathedral area and was a community and market church and thus a symbol of patrician self-confidence. Most of the canons now came from the urban bourgeois families, who also buried their leading members here.

During the Council of Constance (1414–1418) the Roman Rota met in St. Stephan .

In 1428, extensive expansion work was started on the building, which stretched over three quarters of a century and gave the exterior its current shape. The aisles were widened to double. The nave was lengthened by three meters and the church is now easted . A polygonal choir was added on the east side . The upper facade windows received Gothic tracery . In 1483 the construction of the tower added to the south began. However, all of this work reflects chronic resource shortages. The Gothicization was kept to a minimum and kept in simple early Gothic forms.

Reformation time

The Reformation found its way into Constance from Zurich early on, and in the Free Imperial City it joined forces with the opposition to episcopal influence. Since 1527 St. Stephan was imperial . The canons were driven out. The entire equipment - pictures and statues, liturgical books and vessels - fell victim to the iconoclasm . Ulrich Zwingli himself preached in St. Stephan in December 1529.

After the defeat of the Schmalkaldic League in 1548, Constance was re-Catholicized under Habsburg rule . From 1550 St. Stephan was again Catholic and the canons returned. However, the declining importance of the city and the Thirty Years' War prevented an artistically significant refurbishment.

Baroque

From the middle of the 17th to the middle of the 18th century, only the most necessary maintenance work was carried out on St. Stephan. A new impulse was given in 1763 by the donation of Nicholas and Stephen relics by Weingarten Monastery ; Nikolaus von Myra, patron saint of merchants, has been the patron saint of St. Stephen since the 15th century. From 1770 a thorough repair of the church began, which was accompanied by a partial Baroque renovation . The choir, in particular, was given a completely new spatial effect with a light stucco ceiling and a colored ceiling painting by Franz Ludwig Herrmann .

19th and 20th centuries

In 1807 the Stephansstift was abolished. The church remained a Catholic parish church. The structural changes have been minor since then and mainly served as security. The 19th century added the interior decoration in the spirit of the Gothic Revival . At the beginning of the 20th century, a new larch wood ceiling was installed, which was decorated with wooden reliefs by the Freiburg sculptor Joseph Dettlinger .

Furnishing

The pre-Reformation equipment of St. Stephen was largely lost in the chaos of the Reformation. Today's furnishings were only partially created for St. Stephan. Many pieces come from elsewhere.

The choir stalls and eight oil paintings of saints on top date from the early 15th century (partly from the cathedral) . The stained glass windows with depictions of saints, which have flanked the historicist central window in the choir since 1863, were probably created by Claus Nithard around the middle of the 15th century.

The sacrament house , which Hans Morinck created in 1594, stands out among the contributions from the 16th century . With its rich and lively program of figures, it is one of the most important examples of its kind. Several epitaphs in the choir come from the same sculptor . The cycle of apostle pictures with creed texts on the nave pillars, which was uncovered during the most recent restoration, is a little older.

The baroque furnishings have been preserved

  • Johannes Nepomuk figure outside at the end of the choir (1710)
  • Stephen figure above (around 1770)
  • inside left and right on the choir arch Nikolaus and Stephanus (around 1770)
  • twelve apostles on the choir walls (18th century)
  • Parts of the organ prospectus
  • Pulpit (1773)

The main witness of historicism is the neo-Gothic high altar from 1863, which shows the crucifixion of Christ with Mary and John as well as the kneeling Maria Magdalena in the central shrine, and the church patrons Stephen and Nicholas in the outer shrines. The middle choir window with a representation of St. Trinity was created in 1862 (Eggert, Munich).

Between 1910 and 1917, Carl Philipp Schilling and his nephew Franz Schilling adorned the walls of the upper aisle with twelve rectangular narrative pictures depicting scenes from the Gospel, as well as depictions of important saints and church teachers in the spaces and spandrels . This painting is only partially preserved, especially on the north wall.

organ

organ

The organ was built in 1997 by the organ building company Georges Heintz (Schiltach) in the already existing organ prospectus. Behind the middle part of the prospectus are the main work and the positive work, above the main work is the upper work, which takes on the function of a back positive . To the right and left of the main movement are the stops of the swell and the pedal stops in the outer housing parts and on the rear wall. The instrument has 58 stops on 4 manuals and pedal , the depth of the organ is 1.20 m.

I main work C – a 3
1. Principal 16 ′
2. Principal 8th'
3. Gamba 8th'
4th Double flute 8th'
5. Octave 4 ′
6th Gemshorn 4 ′
7th third 3 1 ⁄ 5  ′
8th. Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
9. Super octave 2 ′
10. Cornett V
11. Mixture IV 2 ′
12. Cymbals IV 1'
13. Trumpet 16 ′
14th Trumpet 8th'
II Oberwerk C – a 3
15th Bourdon 16 ′
16. Suavial 8th'
17th Covered 8th'
18th Voce humana 8th'
19th Principal 4 ′
20th Reed flute 4 ′
21st Fifth 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
22nd Flageolet 2 ′
23. Sifflet 1'
24. Sharp IV 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
25th Trumpet 8th'
26th Cromorne 8th'
Tremulant
III Swell C – a 3
27. Bourdon 16 ′
28. Montre 8th'
29 Salicional 8th'
30th Voix céleste 8th'
31. Flûte harmonique 8th'
32. Principal 4 ′
33. Flûte octaviante 4 ′
34. Fugara 4 ′
35. Nazard harm. 2 2 ⁄ 3  ′
36. Octavine 2 ′
37. Tièrce harm. 1 3 ⁄ 5  ′
38. Plein jeu V 2 ′
39. Basson 16 ′
40. Trumpet harm. 8th'
41. Basson-Hautbois 8th'
42. Clairon harm. 4 ′
Tremulant
IV Positive C-a 3
43. Bourdon 8th'
44. Metal dacked 4 ′
45. Forest flute 2 ′
46. Sesquialter II 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
47. Larigot 1 1 ⁄ 3  ′
48. Vox humana 8th'
Tremulant

Pedals C – f 1
49. Grand Bourdon 32 ′
50. Principal bass 16 ′
51. Sub-bass 16 ′
52. Octave bass 8th'
53. Gemshorn 8th'
54. Piffaro II 4 ′ + 2 ′
55. Mixture V 4 ′
56. Bombard 16 ′
57. Trumpet 8th'
58. Clairon 4 ′
  • Coupling : II / I, III / I, III / II, I / P, II / P, III / P
  • Playing aids :
    • 3 fixed combinations (train)
    • Swelling step

Bells

In the tower there is a four-part bronze bells with the nominal values of 1 , it 1 , f 1 and AS 1 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Christina Egli: History of the Canon Monastery of St. Stephan. In: St. Stephan Konstanz. Art publishing house Josef Fink. Digitized version (PDF file, 105 KB) on a website of the Archdiocese of Freiburg.
  2. ↑ More information about the organ on the website of the Heintz company ( Memento from October 20, 2010 in the Internet Archive )

literature

  • Helmut Maurer (editor): The St. Stephan monastery in Constance . (= Germania Sacra , NF 15; The dioceses of the ecclesiastical province of Mainz. The diocese of Constance; 1). 1981 ( digitized version )
  • Theodor Humpert : Canon monastery, parish and church of St. Stephan in Konstanz . Merk, Constance, 1957.
  • Theodor Humpert: Leinersche Epitaphien in the Konstanzer Stephanskirche , in: Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings , 76th year 1958, pp. 93-98 ( digitized )

Web links

Commons : St. Stephan (Konstanz)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 47 ° 39 '45 "  N , 9 ° 10' 27.8"  E