St. Stephani (Osterwieck)
The St. Stephani Church in Osterwieck ( Saxony-Anhalt ) is a memorial of the Christian mission in the northern Harz region, the Romanesque and late Gothic, the early Protestant church building - and the reunification of Germany after 1989.
Today's church stands on the site of the first Carolingian mission center in Seligenstadt, which was founded in 780, in what would later become the Diocese of Halberstadt . With the nave from the middle of the 16th century, already influenced by the Renaissance, between the massive Romanesque tower front from the first decades after 1100 and the late Gothic, pre-Reformation choir, the church shapes the townscape of Osterwieck.
history
The Church of St. Stephani is a five-bay late Gothic hall church with a west building from the mid-12th century and a single-nave choir with a five-eighth end . After a city fire in 1511, the choir and nave were completely renovated. The nave was completed and consecrated in 1562, making it one of the earliest Protestant church buildings. The towers were renewed in the 19th century. Restorations took place in 1790, in the middle of the 19th century and since 1990.
Until 1989 the structure and equipment of the church were in a very endangered condition. The citizens of the city and members of the parish secured the continued existence of the church together with many friends from the northern Harz and Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel area.
Just a few months after the inner-German border opened in March 1990, they founded the St. Stephani / Osterwieck church building association, one of the first “German-German” associations at the time. Its almost 300 members and the donations made to the association have contributed significantly to the renovation of the church.
St. Stephani is an " open church " on the " Romanesque Road " in Saxony-Anhalt. It is visited by around 20,000 visitors a year.
architecture
The exterior view is characterized by the impressive, transversely rectangular west building and the high late Gothic tracery windows in the nave. Like the upper church in Burg bei Magdeburg , the church is influenced by the city churches in Magdeburg , most of which were destroyed in the Second World War and then demolished.
A triple stepped round arch portal is built into the west building. There are two late Gothic portals on the south side; the south-east is very richly structured with bars and a donkey back arch ; the south-western one is framed with staves and branches and dated to 1552. On the north side there is another portal with a curtain arch and the sacristy from 1754 in the corner between the choir and the north aisle.
Inside the west building there are three groin-vaulted rooms, the southern one has been changed by the later installation of a staircase. The nave is a broad hall with pointed arches over octagonal buttress-less pillars. With the material color of the flamed sandstone you determine the impression of the room. The nave and choir are uniformly covered with ribbed vaults. The crossing points of the ribs and the apex of the belt arches are highlighted by keystones with a rosette.
Furnishing
The main piece of equipment is a late Gothic retable from around 1480. The coronation of Mary is shown in the shrine , framed by a wreath of clouds with angels making music, flanked by Saint Stephen and John the Baptist . In the wings, eight saints are arranged in two rows one above the other with well-designed tracery canopies. On the back of the wings and the inside of the outer wings, there are high-quality painted depictions of the life of Jesus against a landscape background; the paintings on the outside have not been preserved. In the predella there are busts of female saints and Mary with child.
The bronze Fünte from around 1300 was also taken over from the previous building. The conical basin with three ornamental strips in bas-relief is supported by four male figures.
The richly carved pulpit dates from 1570 and was redesigned in 1650. The polygonal basket is carried by a figure of Stephen. Figures of the apostles are placed in niches between the corner pillars. The pulpit is decorated with rolling and fittings and has a crown-like sound cover.
The also richly decorated choir stalls are a work from 1620 in the forms of the late Renaissance with ornamented pilasters and round-arched blind arcades with toothed frieze . Painted coats of arms from the 17th and 18th centuries have been preserved in the three east windows . Numerous epitaphs and tombs complete the equipment. The epitaph for Ludolf von Rössing, which was created in 1556 by Jürgen Spinrad from Braunschweig, deserves special mention. There is also the epitaph for J. von Weferling († 1613) and his wife with a crucifixion relief framed by twisted columns and the adoring couple. The prieche of Frau von Gustedt is set up in the southeastern side aisle yoke . Three grave slabs show the deceased († 1593, 1595 and 1607) full-length in ornamented flat niches.
On the north side there is a wooden gallery from 1575 with paintings of the Old Testament on the parapet, to which the guild gallery from 1589 with paintings from the life of Jesus connects in the eastern yoke. The gallery installation in the east yoke of the south aisle is similar in style. In the west there is a convex gallery with baluster from the late 17th century.
The organ is a work from 1866/67 by the Halberstadt organ builder Carl Voigt. The slider chest instrument has 23 stops on two manual works and a pedal. The playing and stop actions are mechanical.
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literature
- Andreas Röcklebe: City and Church. St. Stephani / Osterwieck. An early Protestant interior as a mirror of denomination and power structures. , Master's thesis at the Institute for Art History at the University of Leipzig .
- 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. 683–686.
Individual evidence
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 58 ′ 16 ″ N , 10 ° 42 ′ 32 ″ E