University Church of Marburg

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University Church of Marburg
Dominican stairs
Interior of the church
Detail of the rood screen by Wilhelm Lemcke
Pelican by Wilhelm Lemcke

The university church in Marburg dates back to 1291 and is located in Reitgasse. It is an early Gothic hall church and was built and used as the Dominican monastery church until it was transferred to the Philipps University in the 16th century with the entire monastery complex .

history

The cornerstone of the church was laid in 1291. Landgrave Heinrich I bequeathed the land to the Dominicans . The church bears the nickname "Church on the Rock" to this day, as it was built on the only natural rock in the city, the "Lahnfels". After seven years of construction, the Gothic building was consecrated as a church in 1303 AD. The Dominican mendicant order was very popular with the population because it helped the poor and sick. The Dominicans received donations, which enabled them to furnish the church dedicated to John the Baptist .

With the introduction of the Reformation in Hesse in 1526 under Landgrave Philip I , the monastery was secularized and its property became the material basis for the newly founded Philipps University . The church was renamed "Universitätskirche" and used by the university, e.g. B. for funerals of former professors and for academic teaching. From the 1610s to 1652 the church was used as a grain and granary . From the outside, the old walled-up storage windows can still be seen today.

After the Thirty Years War , the university church was opened in 1653 by Landgrave Wilhelm VI. for the " Protestant service restored" and received an initial refurbishment.

architecture

The church is an asymmetrical two-aisled hall church . Aisle and nave are the same height. There is only one nave and there is no transept . The church is accessible via two entrances, the west portal and the north portal. The polygonal choir is slightly higher than the nave and consists of three bays and a 5/8 end . The church faces east with the choir. It is directly adjacent to the monastery building or the later premises of the Old University and is therefore not free-standing. If you enter the nave via the west portal, you look directly at the choir, which was built first. In the choir there are three-lane windows with tracery, which, however, were subsequently changed or renewed. The organ is also in the choir . The elaborately crafted rood screen , which separates the choir from the nave, dates from 1927, when the university was 400 years old. Just like the galleries and the organ, these were added later.

The nave is lower than the choir and makes the church wider. Even if a south aisle had been planned, this could not have been made possible because the Reitgasse already existed and therefore the necessary space was missing. The side aisle is in the north, that is, adjacent to Reitgasse. On the south side of the nave, the buttresses, which normally reach outwards, as can be seen on the north side, are shifted inwards. Since the former cloister was attached to the outer facade of the south wall, relocation inwards seemed to be the best option. There is also a continuous gallery on the south side inside the church.

On the north side there are four round pillars, the capitals of which are decorated like warriors and into which the vault and arcades flow. There are also galleries between the columns. The seating for the community is in the middle of the nave. The galleries on the south side continue above the entrance of the west portal and are even two-story here. The ceiling, which used to be made of wood, was replaced by a pointed vaulted coffered ceiling, which was painted in red and gray. This color scheme is also used again in the painting of the galleries.

On the roof sits a roof turret . In the literature it is mentioned that the Dominicans as mendicant orders were not allowed to build a tower, so they had a roof turret instead. The roof was completed after the choir was built in 1420.

Today's equipment

On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the university in 1927, the interior of the church was completely redesigned under the pastor and senior church councilor Karl Bernhard Ritter . The interior was kept in an expressionist style. The old flat ceiling was broken open, the choir stalls removed, and the interior provided with a high, continuous double gallery, and the neo-Gothic wooden coffered ceiling was inserted. The former long-aisled hall church was cut in half by means of a transverse wall in the chancel (behind this there are now the congregation's premises) and a rood screen by Wilhelm Lemcke was inserted. At first, the interior seems clunky, dark and almost threatening, at the same time playful, light and light. This corresponds to a typical expressionist interior. One tried to represent the contrasts of the time. Only a few churches remain in this style from the 1920s. Many buildings of this time were rated as degenerate art by the National Socialists , destroyed or converted.

At the same time KB Ritter had the idea of ​​a liturgical light direction in which he implemented the words of St. John "We are in the darkness and wait for his appearance" and "the light shines in the darkness". Opposite the very dark bench block is the light-flooded high choir with the three-lane yoke windows through which the church receives its daylight. Due to the arrangement of the centrally centered bench block and the two side aisles, the view is always of the center of the interior, at the same time the center of the Christian. Faith, the cross, guided. The high choir cross is surrounded by a rood screen (1928), which depicts the life story of Jesus, from the announcement of Mary, to baptism, the Garden of Gethsemane , resurrection, Emmaus disciples, to Ascension. On both sides below the rood screen there are two symbols, on the left the menorah , on the right the Christ monogram as a sign of the Old and New Covenants, and in the middle again the high choir cross as a connecting element of both religious communities. Today there is a St. Christopher fresco on the left . It shows a soldier in the uniform of the First World War . The fresco was completed in 1947 by his friend Franz Frank based on sketches by Franzis Bantzer . Bantzer had donated the fresco to the university church at the beginning of the Second World War , but was no longer able to do it himself, as he died in Polish captivity in 1945.

Below the fresco there is the baptismal font from the Reformation period. This initially served as the actual Cabinet for the Vasa Sacra and was later (1927/28) converted into a baptismal font. The four dolphins represent the sources of the four rivers of life, which spew the water of eternal life from their mouths. Opposite is the high pulpit, which, like the baptismal font, dates from the Reformation, was expanded in the Baroque and Classicism periods.

The altar in the middle dates from the founding time of 1303. The altar legs were decorated in the baroque period. There is a small turning cross on the altar; in the middle the crucified one, surrounded by the four evangelist symbols. On the back the Lamb of God is shown, who overcame death. To match the altar cross, the two altar candlesticks, which are only set up during services, come from the siblings Elisabeth and Otto Coester . During the National Socialist era, Costers were considered degenerate artists, were persecuted by the National Socialists and found refuge in the deaconess mother house in Eisenach. They continued to devote themselves to sacred art.

At the corner of the gallery on the right, facing the pulpit, you can see a pelican, also designed by Wilhelm Lemcke. The pelican stood for the symbol of the god mercy in the late medieval times. It was believed that the pelican fed its young with its own guts and blood. At the same time it represents the Trinity of God. Three in the winged arms of the one, one who surrounds three in his middle.

The colored coffered ceiling in the nave, like the entire interior of the church, comes from the renovation phase of 1927. The supposed wooden coffers are made from nested cigar boxes and only painted on the visible side. Each cassette was individually installed in the ceiling.

organ

View of the organ

The organ is conspicuously placed . She stands behind the altar. The design of the organ is reminiscent of the open wings of an angel. The organ work was built in 1965 by the organ building workshop Emil Hammer Orgelbau . The organ case comes from the previous instrument from the workshop EF Walcker & Cie. from 1927. After an extensive renovation in 2009 by the workshop of Freiburger Orgelbau Hartwig and Tilmann Späth in collaboration with Reiner Janke ( sound design ), the instrument is one of the largest and most sonorous organs in the Marburg area. The organ has 55 registers (approx. 4000 pipes ) on three manuals and a pedal . As part of the renovation, four registers were added to put the instrument on a 16 ′ basis.

I substation C – g 3
1. Quintad 16 ′
2. Metal dacked 8th'
3. recorder 4 ′
4th Flat flute 2 ′
5. Non cornet II-IV 3 15
6th Spicy Mix III-IV 1'
7th Funnel schalmey 8th'
II Hauptwerk C – g 3
9. Principal 16 ′ *
10. Principal 8th'
11. Reed flute 8th'
12. Pointed flute 8th'
13. octave 4 ′
14th Smalled up 4 ′
15th Intoxicating fifth II 2 23 **
16. Nasat 2 23
17th Fifth 2 23
18th octave 2 ′
19th Sesquialter II 2 23
20th Forest flute 2 ′
21st Mixture V-VI 1 13
22nd Cymbel IV 12
23. bassoon 16 ′
24. Trumpet 8th'
III Oberwerk C – g 3
25th Dumped 16 ′ *
26th Light principal 8th'
27. Line flute 8th'
28. octave 4 ′
29 Night horn 4 ′
30th Fifth 2 23 *
31. Super octave 2 ′
32. third 1 35
33. Quartan II 1 13 ***
34. Fifth 1 13
35. octave 1'
36. None 89
37. Scharff IV-V 1'
38. Scharff None 89
39. Dulcian 16 ′
40. Head trumpet 8th'
Tremulant
Pedal C – f 1
41. Great Bass Forte 32 ′ *
42. Great Bourdon 32 ′ ****
43. double bass 16 ′
44. Principal 16 ′
45. Sub bass 16 ′
46. Quintbass 10 23
47. Octave bass 8th'
48. Gemshorn 8th'
49. Choral bass 4 ′
50. Pipe clamp 4 ′
51. Night horn 2 ′
52. Horn ore 1 35
53. Mixture V 2 23
54. trombone 16 ′
55. Trumpet 8th'
56. Clarine 4 ′
  • Coupling : I / II, III / II, III / I, II 4 '/ II, III 4' / III, III 16 '/ III, I / P, II / P, III / P.
  • Annotation:
* = Register added in 2009
** = group train no.17 and 18
*** = group train No. 34 and 35
**** = group train no.45 and 46

Old university building

The former monastery building adjoined the church building to the southeast. It had to give way in favor of the neo-Gothic university building, as it was not only intended to be used for lectures, but also to serve a representative purpose. The neo-Gothic elements, which the university architect Carl Schäfer implemented in the building, should have something sublime and remind of the Gothic of the 13th century. The use of Gothic elements can also be recognized in the interior by the different leaf variants of the capitals. Despite the renovation from 1844 to 1908, he is said to have retained the layout of the old monastery complex. The auditorium buildings were set up in the southern part. An original detention room , a holding cell in universities, has been preserved in the western attic . There is also a cloister that surrounds the courtyard. In the east wing there is an auditorium , which was also built by Carl Schäfer in the years 1887–1891. It has three large tracery windows and, together with the choir of the university church, forms the front to the eastern side of the city. The roofs refer to the surrounding buildings in order to integrate into the urban fabric. The building is now used as the headquarters for the Protestant theology department.

literature

  • Joseph Boymann: Marburg as a city of art . Commission publisher of Elwert's university bookstore, Marburg 1924, p. 38 .
  • Georg Dehio: Handbook of the German art monuments. Hessen I, Gießen district and Kassel . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2008, ISBN 978-3-422-03092-3 , p. 622-624 .
  • Ellen Kemp, Katharina Krause, Ulrich Schütte (eds.): Marburg - architecture guide . Michael Imhof Verlag, Petersberg 2002, ISBN 978-3-935590-67-9 , p. 61-63 .
  • Holger Kuße (ed.): Church on the rock. Festschrift on the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the University Church of Marburg, formerly the Dominican monastery church . Völker and Ritter, Marburg 2000, p. 11-33 .
  • Margret Lemberg: The University Church of Marburg. From the Dominican Church to the Reformed City and University Church . Historical Commission for Hessen, Marburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-942225-31-1 .

Web links

Commons : Universitätskirche Marburg  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Information on the organ ( Memento of the original from September 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.freiburgerorgelbau.de

Coordinates: 50 ° 48 ′ 29.8 "  N , 8 ° 46 ′ 18.7"  E