Holy Cross Monastery (Rostock)

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Monastery church of the Monastery of the Holy Cross

The Monastery of the Holy Cross in Rostock was founded by Cistercian women in the 13th century . It is the only completely preserved monastery complex in the city. The monastery church , which is now used as a university church, belongs to the complex. The art treasures of the church include two ornate historical winged altars and the sacrament house in the choir . The cultural history museum of the city of Rostock is located in the other monastery buildings .

history

Margaret of Denmark

The monastery was founded by the Danish Queen Margarethe in 1270. According to a legend, she donated the monastery out of gratitude for a miraculous rescue from distress near the Hundsburg ( Schmarl ). The Monastery of the Holy Cross is named after its main relic, a splinter from the cross of Jesus Christ, which Queen Margarethe is said to have brought to Rostock from a pilgrimage from Rome. Extensive donations that she made to the monastery are guaranteed. She died in 1282 and was buried in the monastery church in Doberan, which belonged to the Cistercian order . The monastery came through donations, foundations and inheritances in extensive real estate in Rostock and beyond in all of Mecklenburg . Most of the nuns came from wealthy families in Rostock. The monastery was very popular and even had to impose admission restrictions in the 14th century. The monastery church was completed around 1360.

The Reformation only moved into the monastery in 1562 after the nuns had had thirty years of “reflection”. With the second Rostock inheritance contract between the city of Rostock and the dukes of Mecklenburg in 1584, the monastery was converted into a women's monastery. The lives of the inmates had hardly changed as a result: the order was still the same as the Catholic monastery order. After the Thirty Years' War there were only nine inmates. In the 19th century there were efforts to make the property of the monastery state property. But it was not until the constitution of the Free State of Mecklenburg-Schwerin , introduced in 1920, that the monastery could be expropriated and dissolved without compensation. The monastery was closed on August 17, 1920, but the remaining women were granted the right to live for life. The last canoness died in 1981. The monastery church was extensively renovated from 1997 to 2002 outside and then inside.

architecture

The monastery complex. In the foreground the city ​​wall .

The monastery church is a towerless, three-aisled stepped hall with a polygonal choir , which was dendrochronologically (d) dated to 1311. The nave dates from around 1353 (d) and is spanned by ribbed vaults on slim octagonal pillars with profiled dividing arches. The church was extensively renovated by Gotthilf Ludwig Möckel in 1898/99 , which essentially gave it its current neo-Gothic interior design and has served as a university church ever since. Numerous wall and vault paintings from the beginning of the 15th century were revised during the restoration in 1898/99 and restored again in 2004.

A cloister leads around the inner courtyard, which was formerly the cemetery of the monastery . The Claustrum is a two-storey, Gothic building from the 14th century. In the south wing, which was dated to 1327 (d), there is the two-aisled cross-vaulted refectory with five limestone columns on the ground floor. In the north-west wing there are still two nun cells made of plank walls, one of which has been preserved with the original painting (probably from the middle of the 16th century). The rest of the buildings, with the exception of the Dominahaus (19th century), were built in the 15th century. The original equipment of the monastery is no longer available. The professors' houses lining the outer courtyard were built in the 18th century.

Nave with altar and pulpit

Equipment of the monastery church

After that of the Doberaner Minster, the furnishings are the most complete of a medieval monastery church in Mecklenburg.

Main altar

Main altar

The winged altar in the choir dates from the 15th century and can be opened several times. The altar wings of the main altar show scenes from the life of St. Benedict in 16 panels on each of the two fringes , in between six scenes from the life of Mary in the upper row, and six passion scenes below.

On the outside of the wings there are iconographically interesting representations, on the left the engagement of St. Catherine surrounded by allegories of virginity and on the right the allegory of the sacrament mill . In the central shrine, the altar contains a crucifixion scene rich in figures and carved figures of saints.

The predella can also be closed by means of wings, on which the clever and foolish virgins are depicted on the inside and various prophets on the outside. In the shrine of the predella there are seated figures of Anna herself and six other female saints.

Nun altar

Nun altar

The so-called nun altar from the 1st quarter of the 16th century takes its name from its former location on the nun's gallery of the church, which was demolished in 1866. It can be opened several times and shows on its wings representations from the legend about the finding of the cross by Empress Helena . The predella , which shows the burial of Jesus, the resurrection and Jesus as judge of the world in front of the throat of hell, is particularly ornate .

Other equipment

Detail from the sacrament house

One of the notable art treasures of the church is the ornate sacrament house from around 1380 next to the main altar. Above a pedestal with the actual sacrament cabinet rises a multi-segmented, tapering tower with several storeys and very steep proportions, which ends in a pointed spire. Representations of the mercy seat , a Madonna, John the Baptist and Thomas have survived from the figures . It was restored after 2005, with the medieval support structure being restored.

In the church there are also 49 historical grave slabs and other historical sculptures, including a representation of the monastery donor Margaret, a representation of Christ blessing, a representation of the baptism of Christ and a representation of the handkerchief of Veronica . The relic on the breast of the Jesus figure of the triumphal cross group is the alleged relic of the cross that gave it its name and still includes the reliquary with the splinters of the cross of Christ. Late Gothic carved figures of Christ and four apostles were reused on the pulpit from 1616. Furthermore, parts of the medieval choir stalls from the beginning of the 15th century have been preserved. Other beautifully carved parts of a choir stalls from the beginning of the 16th century were reused in the installation of a shed used as a sacristy.

In addition to the main relic, the splinter from the cross of Jesus Christ, there is a thorn of Christ's crown of thorns in a three-tower, chandelier-shaped reliquary (around 1400) in the rock crystal ball as the second main relic of the monastery. It is believed that this thorn comes from the Schwerin Cathedral. The thorn was given to the Schwerin Cathedral by King Louis the Saint of France two years before the death of Bishop Rudolf I in Paris in 1260.

A small bronze bell from 1463 was cast by Rickert de Monkehagen and is tuned to the tone g 2 +1.

organ

Today's organ in the monastery church was built in 1964 by the organ building company Alexander Schuke (Potsdam). The mechanical instrument has 33 registers on three manuals and a pedal .

I main work C–
1. Quintadena 16 ′
2. Principal 8th'
3. Viol 8th'
4th Reed flute 8th'
5. octave 4 ′
6th Pointed flute 4 ′
7th Nasard 2 23
8th. octave 2 ′
9. Mixture V-VI
10. Trumpet 8th'
II upper structure C–
11. Dumped 8th'
12. Principal 4 ′
13. recorder 4 ′
14th Forest flute 2 ′
15th Sesquialtera II 2 23
16. Fifth 1 13
17th Scharff V
18th shawm 8th'
Tremulant
III breastwork C–
19th Holzgedakt 8th'
20th Capstan whistle 4 ′
21st Principal 2 ′
22nd Sif flute 1'
23. Cymbel III
24. Krummhorn 8th'
Tremulant
Pedal C–
25th Principal 16 ′
26th Sub-bass 16 ′
27. octave 8th'
28. Bass flute 8th'
29 Pommer 4 ′
30th Mixture V
31. trombone 16 ′
32. Trumpet 8th'
33. Field trumpet 4 ′
  • Coupling : II / I, III / I, I / P, II / P

Museum of cultural history

literature

  • Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. 2nd Edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin / Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-422-03128-9 , pp. 517-520.
  • Hans-Dieter Grampp: The Holy Cross Monastery in Rostock (= Schnell: Art Guide No. 1903 ). Munich / Zurich 1991.
  • Thomas Hill: The Monastery of the Holy Cross, Margrethe Sambria and Rostock's relations with Denmark in the 13th century. In: Ortwin Pelc (Ed.): 777 years of Rostock. New contributions to the city's history (= writings of the Cultural History Museum in Rostock. Vol. 2). Reich, Rostock 1995, ISBN 3-86167-078-X , pp. 21-30.
  • Sabine Pettke: The Rostock Monastery of the Holy Cross from the 16th to the 20th century. Ecclesiastical and constitutional disputes in the context of the Mecklenburg monastery and constitutional question (= Central German Research. Vol. 106). Böhlau, Cologne a. a. 1991, ISBN 3-412-02791-X (At the same time: Rostock, Universität, Dissertation, 1985).
  • Wolfgang Eric Wagner : The grave slabs of the monastery "Zum Heiligen Kreuz" in Rostock. Redieck & Schade, Rostock 2007, ISBN 978-3-934116-61-0 .

Web links

Commons : Kloster zum Heiligen Kreuz  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Nizze A., Stuth S. (2005). The Monastery of the Holy Cross, Edition Godewind; Edition: Reprint d. Original edition Rostock, self-published by the author, 1937 (reprint 2005), ISBN 978-3-938347-05-8
  2. a b Georg Dehio : Handbook of German Art Monuments. Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. 2nd Edition. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin / Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-422-03128-9 , pp. 517-519.
  3. a b c Gerd Baier , Horst Ende , Brigitte Oltmanns : The architectural and art monuments in the Mecklenburg coastal region . Henschel Verlag, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-362-00523-3 , p. 401-407 .
  4. Nizze A., Stuth S. (2005). The Monastery of the Holy Cross, Edition Godewind; Edition: Reprint d. Original edition Rostock, self-published by the author, 1937 (reprint 2005), ISBN 978-3-938347-05-8
  5. Hempel, G. (1843). Geographical-statistical-historical handbook of the Meklenburger Land (Vol. 2). E. Frege.
  6. More information on the Schuke organ

Coordinates: 54 ° 5 ′ 14 "  N , 12 ° 7 ′ 57"  E