St. Thomas Church (Strasbourg)
The Lutheran Thomas Church ( Église Saint-Thomas ) is one of the culturally and historically and architecturally important churches of Strasbourg . Since the Strasbourg Cathedral had to be returned to the Catholics in 1681 after the occupation of Strasbourg by France as part of the reunification policy of King Louis XIV , the St. Thomas Church has been the main Lutheran church of the entire region, the Protestant Church of the Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine . The church is also famous for its organ by Johann Andreas Silbermann from 1741.
history
Around the year 600, a Benedictine convent with a church was founded at the current location , which was dedicated to the Apostle Thomas . In the 9th century, Bishop Adalog (817–822) had a magnificent new church built with an adjoining school. Both burned down in 1007 by a lightning strike. After the reconstruction, the monastery was converted into a collegiate monastery in 1031 . Another devastating fire caused by lightning strikes occurred in 1144. With the help of an indulgence privilege , the facade of the new building began in 1196, combining Romanesque massiveness with early Gothic details. The transverse structure shows closed brickwork with small window openings on the one hand, and a progressive rose window on the other hand, and the tower combines compact proportions and round arch friezes with early Gothic windows. Around 1270/1280 the choir and the transept with the crossing tower were built in Gothic forms. This was followed by the construction of the nave as a hall church until around 1330. The construction work ended in 1521 with side chapels in the late Gothic style.
In 1524 the church was assigned to the Lutheran faith ( Martin Bucer served as pastor here ), and it was able to maintain this status despite the annexation of Alsace by Catholic France. The collegiate monastery ("chapter") with its possessions and income remained as a Lutheran institution. The endowments now benefited the two pastors and the professors of the university. Today the Chapitre de Saint-Thomas still manages several primary and secondary schools (École Saint-Thomas , Foyer Jean Sturm ...) as well as the Séminaire Protestant housed in the adjoining Baroque building .
The St. Thomas Church played a decisive role in the older liturgical movement as the place where Friedrich Spitta tried out new forms of worship from 1888 and founded the Academic Church Choir . From 1893 Julius Smend was added as a regular preacher. The hymn book for Alsace-Lorraine was developed here from 1894–1899 .
On May 7, 2006, the foundation of the Union of Protestant Churches of Alsace and Lorraine was celebrated in St. Thomas Church .
architecture
The Thomaskirche is a five-aisled hall church , the oldest building of its kind in what was then southwestern Germany. The inside length is about 65 meters, the inside height about 22 meters (about 30 meters below the late Gothic crossing dome), the inside width about 30 meters. On the side of the left outer aisle there are galleries. To the right and left of the choir apse there are separate, late Gothic chapels .
Furnishing
Tombs
In the church there are several grave monuments from the period from 1130 to 1850, including two works by Landolin Ohmacht . The most famous are the ornate Romanesque sarcophagus (1130) of Bishop Adeloch and the huge late Baroque mausoleum (1777) of Marshal Hermann Moritz von Sachsen , the work of the Parisian sculptor Jean-Baptiste Pigalle . The marshal was not allowed to be buried in the French capital because of his Lutheran faith. Among the many other remarkable monuments falls Renaissance - grave plate on (1510) of a Nicholas Roeder animal mountain, which is realistically his rotting carcass. Roeder donated the life-size Mount of Olives sculpture group (1498), which is now set up in the north transept of the Strasbourg cathedral .
Sarcophagus made of local sandstone for the 9th century Strasbourg bishop Adeloch around 1130. A work by the master of the Eschau cloister. Vine tendrils front side
Front with arcades and 9th century motifs like a nereid on a fish. The sarcophagus rests on four small lions.
The pillars of the arcades are designed as aedicules . In the middle fields the kneeling bishop Adeloch (with staff) in front of the blessing Christ and an angel. Cover according to the inscription from the year 830.
Frescoes
A late Gothic depiction of St. Michael in the right nave is one of the largest of its kind in France after that of St. Christopher in Wissembourg .
Stained glass window
Of the medieval leaded glass windows , only the rose window on the facade, which has been restored several times, has been preserved in all its fields. Only the upper part of the large nave windows can be seen, which depicts architectural and plant motifs in an elaborate manner. The images of saints formerly underneath were destroyed by Protestant iconoclasts in the 16th century . The choir windows are contemporary in style.
Organs
The church is internationally known for its historically and musically important organs : the Silbermann organ from 1741, restored by Alfred Kern in 1979 to approximate the original , on which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played in 1778, and the one in 1905 by organ builder Fritz Haerpfer based on plans by Albert Choir organ made by Schweitzer and installed in 1906. The Silbermann organ today has 38 registers on three manuals and a pedal .
Disposition of the main organ
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- Pair : I / II, III / II, II / P, III / P
Disposition of the choir organ
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- Coupling : II / I, I / P, II / P
Bells
The Bachert bell foundry from Karlsruhe cast four new bells . The bells were cast on May 29, 2009 and inaugurated on September 6, 2009. They complement the historic large bell, which was cast in 1783, which only rings on unusual occasions, and the smaller Our Father Bell from 1810; both works by the Strasbourg bell foundry Edel.
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No. |
designation |
Casting year |
Caster |
Diameter (mm) |
Mass (kg) |
Percussive ( HT - 1 / 16 ) |
| 1 | Bourdon | 1783 | Matthew III. Noble | 1,820 | 3,625 | a 0 +11 |
| 2 | Amour | 2009 | Bachert bell foundry | 1,478 | 2,075 | c sharp 1 +11 |
| 3 | Foi | 2009 | Bachert bell foundry | 1,293 | 1,549 | e 1 +8 |
| 4th | Espérance | 2009 | Bachert bell foundry | 1,155 | 1,094 | f sharp 1 +10 |
| 5 | Notre Père | 1810 | Bell foundry Edel | 919 | 435 | g sharp 1 +2 |
| 6th | Témoins ensemble | 2009 | Bachert bell foundry | 981 | 728 | a 1 +11 |
Since the Middle Ages it has been a tradition that the bells of the St. Thomas Church always ring five minutes before those of the minster , so as not to drown them out or to be drowned out by them. For this reason, the new bells were more or less coordinated with the peal of the minster, “to avoid religious wars”.
Individual evidence
- ^ Germania Sacra
- ↑ Chapitre de Saint-Thomas, église
- ↑ Martin Bucer
- ^ History of St. Thomas ( Memento from December 13, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Chapitre de Saint-Thomas, patrimoine
- ↑ Images of the Sarkopghag on Commons
- ↑ Partial view of the mausoleum ( Memento from August 11, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Illustration of the grave slab
- ^ Photo of the rose window ( Memento from April 2, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ More information on the Silbermann organ ( memento from April 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Strasbourg, les nouvelles cloches de Saint Thomas
Web links
- Thomas Church (Strasbourg). In: arch INFORM .
- Thomas Church (Strasbourg). In: Structurae
- The main organ
- The choir organ
Coordinates: 48 ° 34 ′ 47 " N , 7 ° 44 ′ 43" E