St. Trinitatis (Zerbst / Anhalt)
Sankt Trinitatis is a Protestant church in Zerbst / Anhalt , which was inaugurated in 1696 and today serves as a community center.
In the vicinity of the Zerbst market there are two important church buildings next to each other: The medieval church of St. Nicolai is the largest church building in all of Anhalt. The church was destroyed in World War II and is now in ruins. Opposite it is the St. Trinity Church from the 17th century, which Prince Carl Wilhelm von Anhalt-Zerbst had built for the Lutheran congregation in order to settle the dispute between the Reformed and Lutherans .
Building history
On June 4, 1683, the foundation stone for the St. Trinity Church was laid on the former cattle market. It was inaugurated in a solemn service on October 16, 1696, the Prince's birthday, and dedicated to the Holy Trinity (Trinitas). The architect of the church is the builder Cornelis Ryckwært from the Netherlands , who also designed the palace buildings in Zerbst, Oranienbaum and others. The originally planned construction cost of 12,000 thalers was not enough for the church - which ended up costing 30,344 thalers. Rykwært died in 1693, his successor as architect and site manager was the Italian Giovanni Simonetti .
During the Allied bombing raid on April 16, 1945, the Trinity Church burned down completely. 126 works of art were irretrievably lost. The vault and the high altar were badly damaged. Reconstruction began in the early 1950s. At the same time, an organ gallery was reinstalled and the war damage to the high altar was removed.
In 1991 St. Trinitatis was extensively renovated, the facade was newly plastered, the roof was re-covered and the lead glass windows were completely renewed. For the 300th anniversary on October 16, 1996, the church again had an attractive, well-groomed appearance. In 2003 the church was converted into a modern community center.
architecture
The church is a central building , built on the plan of a Greek cross . The large cube of the crossing with the high tent roof and the idiosyncratic shape of the tower knob are its most striking symbols. The four antique facades are more reminiscent of a theater or a concert hall than a sacred building . The Oosterkerk in Amsterdam served as a model .
Interior
Around 1690 Simonetti created the high altar with the fully sculptural resurrection group and the evangelists Lukas and Johannes on the segment gables . The figures of the other two evangelists, Matthew and Mark, stand above the side passages .
The Romanesque font was originally in Bergwitz . It is around 800 years old, making it one of the oldest works of art in Zerbst. The baptismal altar next to it comes from the Thuringian village of Schleid. A painting for him was found in Dessau: the painting "Christ and the four great sinners" by Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) by the Dessau court and artist painter Heinrich Beck (1788–1875). A copy of the painting “Justina and the Bishop of Antioch” by Alessandro Moretto (1498–1555), which Heinrich Olivier made around 1800, hangs on the north wall . To the left of it is the painting “The Holy Family on the Flight” (around 1500) from the Michelangelo area .
Michael Emig from Magdeburg created the two altar paintings “Crucifixion” and “Last Supper”.
In the southern part of the church are a Luther - Epitaph and an oil painting emphasized that probably the Superintendent Wolfgang Amling represents (1542-1606). Amling was the driving force behind the founding of Zerbster University, the illustrious grammar school, which existed from 1582 to 1798. The Luther epitaph, a work from 1917, from the Stadtkirche Wittenberg, has had its place in St. Trinity since 1927.
On the south side there is the remarkable pulpit from the 17th century. It has been part of the inventory since 1966 and comes from the Ulrich Church in Sangerhausen. It is carried by a Moses figure . In the fields of the pulpit, the four evangelists Matthew, Mark, Luke and John can be seen with their attributes, supported by two Old Testament prophets. The carved sound cover forms the conclusion.
organ
A baroque organ prospect from Schmalkalden was used for the new organ . The instrument (2,200 pipes , 33 registers , two manuals ) built by the company Orgelbau A. Schuster & Sohn from Zittau was inaugurated in 1962. It is the largest organ between Magdeburg and Wittenberg.
Burial place of the princes of Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg
In the crypt in front of the high altar, which is no longer accessible, there are ten coffins of members of the Anhalt-Zerbst-Dornburg princely families, including those of the grandparents of Princess Sophie Auguste Friederike (later Catherine II , Tsarina of Russia) and three of her coffins siblings who died earlier.
reception
The Zerbst architect Friedrich Joachim Michael Stengel (1694–1787) took the Trinity Church as the basis for his construction of the Ludwig Church in Saarbrücken .
Oosterkerk in Amsterdam, model of the Trinity Church
Model of the Ludwig Church in Saarbrücken based on the model of the Trinity Church
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 58 ′ 10.5 ″ N , 12 ° 5 ′ 13.8 ″ E