St. Sebastian (Mannheim)

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Old Town Hall and St. Sebastian
Mannheim in the 17th century, above the Friedrichsburg, below the "new" Mannheim ( Matthäus Merian 1645)

St. Sebastian is the oldest Catholic parish church in the city of Mannheim and one of the three churches of the Mannheim-City pastoral care unit in the city center. In the time of the Electorate of the Palatinate , it was used by the Elector as a court church and was beautifully decorated by artists such as Bibiena , Verschaffelt and Egell . The equipment was impaired by remodeling in the 19th century and damage in the Second World War . The St. Sebastian Church and the Old Town Hall form a Baroque double structure built at the beginning of the 18th century , which is the oldest preserved structure in the city.

history

First church in Mannheim

Mannheim was first mentioned in the year 766 in the Lorsch Codex . It is not known since when there was a church in Mannheim; a pastor was first attested in 1309. In the Worms Synodale of 1496, a visitation protocol of the parishes of the diocese of Worms , the Mannheim parish church was described and recorded for the first time that St. Sebastian was the patron saint of the church and village. In 1556, Elector Ottheinrich introduced the Reformation to the Electoral Palatinate .

Nothing is known about the further fate of the old Sebastianskirche. But it was probably demolished at the beginning of the 17th century when the Friedrichsburg was built as a bulwark to protect the Protestant Electoral Palatinate instead of the old village and the Mannheim villagers had to move north of it to today's lower town of the squares . With the exception of a few years during the Thirty Years War , Mannheim subsequently remained Protestant. The few Catholics were forbidden to practice their religion in public , so they secretly attended the service in the St. Aegidius Church in Seckenheim .

New building of the church

In 1685, Philipp Wilhelm, a Catholic branch of the Wittelsbach family, took over the Electoral Palatinate inheritance, which decreed that Catholics could use the churches of the Reformed and Lutherans , and in 1701 Mannheim was given its own Catholic parish again. After the destruction of the Palatinate War of Succession , there was only one emergency church that was used simultaneously and, from 1704, the church of the Capuchin monastery . In the meantime, the foundation stone for a town hall on the central market square had been laid in 1700 in square F 1 , on whose west wing the municipality was planning a weighing house with representative rooms on the upper floor. The Catholics, with the support of the city director, suggested that the main Catholic church be built on this site instead. Elector Johann Wilhelm approved the application in 1706 and the foundation stone was laid on November 25th that same year. Auxiliary Bishop Peter Cornelius von Beyweg consecrated it in honor of the Holy Trinity and the Beata Maria Virgo Assumpta ( Assumption of Mary ). The plans met with resistance from the representatives of the predominantly Protestant city, also because they would cover most of the costs and the building was to be symmetrically based on the representative style of the town hall. Instead, they suggested building the church in square N 1 at Paradeplatz . This, in turn, was rejected by the Catholics because the building site was too poor and the regular cattle market was held there, so that in 1707 the elector ordered the building of the church on the market square.

Mannheim 1758 (Josef Anton Baertels):
1. St. Sebastian
2. Paradeplatz
3. Capuchin monastery
4. Jesuit church
5. Castle church

According to the plans of the Vorarlberg master builder Johann Jakob Rischer (1662–1755), the church was built under the direction of the engineers William Cour and Johann W. Nottum. Contrary to Rischer's original plan, the elector ordered all parts of the building to be raised by 10 feet, arched windows for the church and the abandonment of a dome over the church. Instead, like the town hall before, the church was given a high hipped roof. It was consecrated on December 12, 1709 and presumably consecrated as an episcopal on May 1, 1710 . As a tradition, Sebastian was taken over as patron of the town church. After that, the church was still being built until 1723, especially the facade decoration and the interior.

In 1720, Elector Carl Philipp moved the residence of the Electoral Palatinate from Heidelberg to Mannheim and used St. Sebastian as a court church until the palace church was built in 1731 . Even after that, the elector regularly attended the service in the church once a year on January 20th - the feast of St. Sebastian. As early as 1742, the church had to be renovated under the direction of Alessandro Galli da Bibiena . The church on the market square was soon too small for the growing number of Catholics. The need for a second parish was established as early as 1744, but was not established due to lack of funds. In 1804, the new sovereign Karl Friedrich von Baden ordered the parish to be relocated to the Jesuit church because it was larger and in better condition. It was not until December 1824 that St. Sebastian's own parish was established again. Since then, the names Obere (Jesuit Church) and Lower Parish (St. Sebastian) have become established.

After 1827

View around 1840 ( Joseph Maximilian Kolb )

Within the Catholic Church, after the dissolution of the diocese of Worms, St. Sebastian belonged to the dean's office of Heidelberg in the archbishopric of Freiburg from 1827 until the city ​​dean's office of Mannheim was founded in 1902 . Because of the population explosion in Mannheim at the end of the 19th century - the city's population rose from 39,606 to 141,147 between 1871 and 1900 - further churches were built and parishes were founded and separated from the two original parishes, such as the Church of Our Lady and the Holy Spirit -Kirche 1903, Herz-Jesu-Kirche 1904 and St.-Josef-Kirche 1907.

The interior of the church underwent some radical changes during this time. First, in 1875, the high altar in the Rococo style was demolished and replaced by a historicizing cibory altar. In addition, the antependium was loaned to Berlin in 1934. The remains of the high altar, the barricade barriers and four figures preserved after the destruction of the Second World War are now exhibited in the Bode Museum .

Bode Museum, figure of the former high altar

During the renovation in 1906/07, the apse was painted and the windows in the choir bricked up. In 1936 the church was restored. Joseph Sauer had previously prepared an expert opinion and criticized the fact that the church was "unspeakably distorted in terms of color and embarrassingly overgrown by the magazine-like accumulation of products of artistic non-culture". The stucco work from 1906 and two “pseudo-altars” were removed and the original color scheme was restored as far as it could be determined.

During the Second World War, more than three quarters of the buildings in Mannheim were destroyed. The St. Sebastian Church, on the other hand, suffered comparatively little damage. In an air raid in April 1943, the market square facade, the roof and parts of the interior were damaged. Then an emergency church was set up under the organ gallery. After the war, the entire church - with an emergency roof - could be used again at the end of 1945. Between 1952 and 1954, St. Sebastian was then extensively renovated and some of the equipment that had been lost was replaced. The new high altar was consecrated on March 28, 1954. In 1973 and 1999 the church was renovated.

With the population emigrating from the city center and the dwindling number of believers, consolidation began towards the end of the 20th century. The three inner-city parishes of the Upper and Lower Parishes and the Church of Our Lady were merged into one pastoral care unit on September 1, 2005 . The Mannheim evangelization team has been celebrating its services in St. Sebastian since 2003 and the Catholic university community since 2009. The jubilee year 2007 - the city celebrated the 400th anniversary of the granting of city rights - was used by the community to revive an old tradition. Since then she has been celebrating the Sebastianus Festival on January 20th, the anniversary of the death of the church and former village patron. In 2009, with a view to the 98th German Catholics Day, which took place in Mannheim in 2012, it was decided to renovate the outside of the church.

description

Exterior design

The church, together with the old town hall, forms the dominant southern edge of the market square . On the other edges of the square stood old houses up to the Second World War, both two-story buildings from the Baroque era and three- and four-story buildings in the style of classicism and historicism , because in the 19th century in particular, the houses on the market square were a preferred residential area of ​​the upper middle class . Almost all buildings were destroyed during the war and then replaced by residential and commercial buildings in the functional style of the time, creating a strong contrast to the baroque double building of town hall and church as well as the market square fountain built in 1767 .

The external appearance of the building, which is characterized by the striking interplay between brightly plastered surfaces and red sandstone , is typical of buildings from the Baroque period in Mannheim. The ensemble of town hall, bell tower and church follows the Mannheim building scheme of public buildings with almost symmetrical components and the tower in the middle. The connection between the secular authority and religion is made clear by the inscription in large, golden letters that stretches across the gable of the three parts of the building: “Iustitiae et Pietati” ( Justice and Piety ). The facades are crowned by corresponding female figures, who symbolize the two virtues. The bell tower ends in a multi-tiered helmet. The symmetry is reinforced by the portals to both buildings. The portal of the town hall is decorated with atlases , that of the church with angels . The balcony above the church portal is only an ornament and cannot be entered.

The market square facade of the church is divided into seven axes. Between the six large, arched windows are pilasters with a triglyph frieze . The base is covered by small general stores that reach up to the window. The arched portal in the middle is lined with two caryatids designed as angels , which carry a shell-shaped entablature with the balcony above. The inscription in the cartouche above the portal uses a chronogram to indicate the year 1713. The balcony portal is crowned with a broken gable top decorated with acanthus leaves and volutes .

The facade on the street side has a similar external appearance as the market square facade. The pilasters on the base are connected to a cornice with five axes . There is a blind niche above the arched portal . It is framed by two Corinthian columns. In the pair of pilasters behind it there are two small figure niches that are empty today. The facade on the courtyard side is more simple, the main cornice has only one section and the windows have a simple frame. The church is covered by a high hipped roof .

Bell tower

Bell for Sunday service

According to a comparison from 1908, the tower belongs to the city of Mannheim and the bells are jointly owned by the political and parish communities. A relatively small bell hangs in the mighty bell tower, but it is a completely preserved four-part baroque bell from the 18th century. The big bell is probably a semitone too high, because in the Baroque period many bells were based on triads (it was supposed to be the four-part E minor seventh chord e 1 –g 1 –h 1 –d 2 ).

No. volume Casting year Foundry, casting location Ø (mm)
1 f 1 1761 Johann Michael Steiger, Mannheim 1210
2 g 1 1720 Heinrich Ludwig Gosman, Landau 1010
3 h 1 1709 Johann Adam Roth, Mainz 820
4th d 2 1747 Johann Michael Steiger, Mannheim 650

In 1956, poured Friedrich Wilhelm Schilling a 23-voice chimes with the range d 2 -d 4 , which is housed in the tower lantern and plays at 7:45, 11:45 and 17:45 daily. It has six roles with six songs each. Each roll is used for a month and is then changed by hand.

Church floor plan

inner space

The church rises on a square plan. The edge length of the interior - without the choir adjoining to the east - is 26 meters. It is divided into two aisles and a central nave by four strong columns each with Attic bases on octagonal plinths with Corinthian capitals . The ceiling height in the side aisles with groined vaults is 11.90 meters and in the barrel vaulted central nave 15.20 meters. The choir, which is semicircular in plan, is vaulted with a semi-dome with stitch caps. It used to have arched windows and was probably structured with stucco pilasters. The communion bench around the choir is made of marbled sandstone and was built in 1741.

High altar

The first high altar was based on a design by Alessandro Galli Bibiena from 1739. This design was carried out by Franz Zeller (carpenter) and Paul Egell in 1741. The work of art was considered a "Rococo masterpiece".

The high altar showed a large relief with gilded wood carvings. In the center was the half-relief with the crucified Jesus, flanked by Mary and John. To the right and left of it as a relief, the figures of Saint Sebastian and Saint Roch. The side doors were crowned with busts of saints. The tabernacle was decorated with kneeling and worshiping angels.

In 1875 this was removed from the church and replaced by a historicizing ciboric altar in 1877/78 . The former high altar was sold to the Berlin Museum of Decorative Arts in 1879 . At that time it was described as a "regrettable sign of worldly demons and intrusive inart". In an air raid in April 1943, the high altar from 1877/78 was damaged and replaced by a new high altar, which was consecrated on March 28, 1954. The new high altar - a wooden relief depicting the Coronation of Mary - was created in 1954 by Karl Baur (1881–1968). The carved figures of saints Johannes , Paulus , Petrus and Sebastian , which were erected in 1956, as well as the tabernacle are by the same artist . After the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council, the celebration altar was moved away from the wall towards the people, whereby the relationship between the cafeteria and the relief was lost.

Side altars

The side altars date from the 18th century. The left side altar , which is consecrated to St. Theodor , comes from Peter Anton von Verschaffelt . In 1778, Elector Carl Theodor acquired relics of his namesake in Rome and donated the altar. Verschaffelt's impressive Madonna and Child was placed on the altar in the classicist style . It was created after the model of a Madonna by Michelangelo , which is in the Church of Our Lady in Bruges . Since 1925 there has been a relief of the holy mother Anna in the transverse oval gable field . It comes from an old chapel in Kappelrodeck , where it may have come from the Allerheiligen monastery .

The right side altar, like the left one made of reddish marble, is dominated by an altar panel painted on oil with a representation of the Last Supper . The elevator picture shows the Archangel Michael. It is flanked by statues of Sebastian and Johannes Nepomuk .

pulpit

The pulpit, like the high altar, was based on a design by Alessandro Galli da Bibiena . This was donated in 1742 by the Ehrenreich Count Andreas von Pohlheim and his wife, Countess Therese Wilhelmine von Pollheim-Winkelhausen , who had been widowed since 1735. Her family crest and that of her late husband Andreas Ehrenreich von Pollheim are attached to it. From 1743 to 1757 she officiated as abbess of Lindau and also financed the construction of the collegiate church of Our Lady , where the same coat of arms adorn the choir arch. The elegantly curved staircase is decorated with bandwork and the coat of arms of the donor couple is applied to the base of the pulpit. The gold-plated relief on the pulpit shows the adoration of the Lamb according to the Revelation of John . Originally there were evangelist figures on the sound cover decorated with volutes and rocailles . They were removed in the 1870s because they were "exuberantly entangled" and replaced with a figure of Moses . This in turn was removed during the restoration in 1936 and a knob was attached instead. In 1954 the 83 centimeter tall Moses figure was found in the rubble and given to the Reiss Museum . The sound cover of the pulpit, on the other hand, has been adorned since 1952 with a carved pelican with its cubs, which comes from the tabernacle of the Catholic Church in Landshausen . The work of art is considered to be "exemplary of the art at the Electoral Palatinate court of the forties of the 18th century".

Baptismal font and organ

organ

The baptismal font was donated in 1843. It is made of marbled sandstone and decorated with acanthus ornaments. At the two entrances from the market square and from the street there are two shell-shaped holy water basins made of gray-reddish marble, which were created around 1720.

The organ is on the gallery opposite the choir. The first organ in the church was built in 1715 by the Frankfurt organ builder Johann Friedrich Macrander and used until 1872. According to a design by the architect Bender, Voit built a new organ that was exhibited at the “Art and Industry” exhibition in Karlsruhe in 1875 and installed two years later in St. Sebastian. Today's three-manual organ was created by the Klais company in 1961 . She added two side wings to the old prospect and also took over the wooden pipes from the Voit organ.

More works of art

Oil paintings by an unknown artist form the Way of the Cross . They were created for the parish church in Kappelrodeck in the second quarter of the 19th century and brought to Mannheim in 1955.

Burial place

According to Jakob Baroggio The History of Mannheim from its creation to 1861 , the church has a crypt in which a large number of local historically significant people are buried. Some of their epitaphs have been preserved, they are in the wall under the organ gallery. Several of them are qualitative marble works by Franz Conrad Linck (1730–1793). Some memorial stones were lost due to the destruction of the Second World War.

Existing epitaphs are for:

Disappeared epitaphs that have survived in Jakob Baroggio or in the Thesaurus Palatinus by the regional historian Johann Franz Capellini von Wickenburg :

Web links

Commons : St. Sebastian  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

literature

  • Willy Oeser : About the fate of an old parish church: Basic thoughts on restoring the Lower Parish Church to St. Sebastian in Mannheim. J. Gremm, Mannheim 1934.
  • Hans Huth: The art monuments of the city district Mannheim I. Munich 1982, ISBN 3-422-00556-0 .
  • Clemens Jöckle , Franz-Xaver Portenlänger: Lower Parish Church of St. Sebastian Mannheim. 2nd Edition. Regensburg 2005, ISBN 3-7954-4805-0 .
  • Ulrich Nieß : The village of Mannheim from the first documentary mention to the founding of the city (766 to 1607). In: Hansjörg Probst (Hrsg.): Mannheim before the city was founded. Part II Volume 1. Regensburg 2006, ISBN 3-7917-2019-8 .
  • City of Mannheim, Michael Caroli, Ulrich Nieß (ed.): History of the city of Mannheim. Volume 1: 1607-1801. Ubstadt-Weiher 2007, ISBN 978-3-89735-470-8 .
  • Reiner Albert, Günther Saltin: Catholic life in Mannheim. Volume 1: From the beginnings to secularization (1803). Ostfildern 2009, ISBN 978-3-7995-0908-4 .
  • Stefanie Krause: The Mannheim high altar by Paul Egell. Considerations on the reception of Roman bas-reliefs and wall retables in the early 18th century, in: Yearbook of the Berlin Museums, NF, Vol. 48, Berlin 2006, pp. 55–71.
  • Stefanie Leibetseder: Johann Paul Egell (1691–1752). The court sculptor from the Electoral Palatinate and the court art of his time. Sculpture - Ornament - Relief (= studies on international architecture and art history, 96), Diss. Phil. Petersberg 2013.
  • Stefanie Leibetseder: “Schmuck der Kurpfalz”: New sources on the origin and genealogy of Paul Egell (1691–1752), in: Kunstchronik, 67 (2014), no. 5, pp. 227–230.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Clemens Jöckle, Franz-Xaver Portenlänger: Lower Parish Church of St. Sebastian Mannheim. Regensburg 2005, p. 18.
  2. Karl Josef Minst [transl.]: Lorscher Codex (Volume 2), Certificate 549, March 11, 766 - Reg. 20. In: Heidelberg historical stocks - digital. Heidelberg University Library, p. 197 , accessed on March 14, 2016 .
  3. Worms Synodale . P. 316.
  4. Ulrich Nieß: The village of Mannheim from the first documentary mention to the founding of the city (766 to 1607) . In: Hansjörg Probst (Ed.): Mannheim before the city was founded: Part II Volume 1 . Regensburg 2006, pp. 448, 454, 464-467.
  5. Reiner Albert, Günther Saltin: Catholic life in Mannheim. Volume 1: From the beginnings to secularization (1803). Ostfildern 2009, pp. 90-101.
  6. Reiner Albert, Günther Saltin: Catholic life in Mannheim. Volume 1: From the beginnings to secularization (1803). Ostfildern 2009, pp. 109–111, 131–135.
  7. Reiner Albert, Günther Saltin: Catholic life in Mannheim. Volume 1: From the beginnings to secularization (1803). Ostfildern 2009, pp. 135/136.
  8. Johannes Theil: … when the cannons are fired: Church services, church festivals and church music in the Mannheim court chapel according to the Palatinate court and state calendar . Norderstedt 2008, ISBN 978-3-8370-2545-3 , p. 71.
  9. Reiner Albert, Günther Saltin: Catholic life in Mannheim. Volume 1: From the beginnings to secularization (1803). Ostfildern 2009, p. 316.
  10. ^ Karl Anton Straub: Mannheim Church History: Catholic Past and Present. Mannheim 1957, p. 49.
  11. State. Archive administration Baden-Württemberg in connection with d. Cities and districts Heidelberg u. Mannheim (Hrsg.): The city and districts Heidelberg and Mannheim: Official district description. Volume 3: The city of Mannheim and the municipalities of the Mannheim district . Karlsruhe 1970, p. 206.
  12. ^ Hans Huth: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Stadtkreis Mannheim I. München 1982, S. 481/482.
  13. ^ City of Mannheim, Michael Caroli, Ulrich Nieß (eds.): History of the city of Mannheim. Volume 3: 1914-2007 . Ubstadt-Weiher 2009, ISBN 978-3-89735-472-2 , p. 430.
  14. ^ Karl Anton Straub: Mannheim Church History: Catholic Past and Present. Mannheim 1957, pp. 49/50.
  15. ^ Clemens Jöckle, Franz-Xaver Portenlänger: Lower Parish Church of St. Sebastian Mannheim. Regensburg 2005, p. 6.
  16. Mannheim evangelization team  ( page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.m-et.de  
  17. Students no longer pray in the castle . Mannheimer Morgen, November 11th, 2009.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.morgenweb.de  
  18. Anke Philipp: Catholics renovate their houses of worship . Mannheimer Morgen, April 3, 2009.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.morgenweb.de  
  19. ^ Andreas Schenk: Architectural Guide Mannheim . Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-496-01201-3 , p. 41.
  20. Franz Wilhelm Koch: R 1, 4–6: A house on the market through the ages . Mannheim 1959, pp. 8-15.
  21. ^ Hans Huth: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Stadtkreis Mannheim I. Munich 1982, pp. 482-486.
  22. ^ Volker Müller: Bells in Mannheim . 2007.
  23. Tower ascent with catchy tune guarantee . City of Mannheim 2009.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archivesInfo: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.mannheim.de  
  24. ^ Hans Huth: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Stadtkreis Mannheim I. Munich 1982, pp. 486-490, 492/493.
  25. ^ Hugo Schnell and Johannes Steiner (eds.): Our Parish Church St. Sebastian , (from the series Schnell Art Guide No. 1079) Verlag Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2005, p. 4.
  26. Friedrich Walter: Buildings of the Electoral Period in Mannheim , Benno Filser Verlag, Augsburg 1928, pp. 51–52.
  27. quoted from Susanne Räuchle, Mannheimer Morgen from April 30, 2010 "300 years of storm-tested in the sign of Sebastian"
  28. ^ Clemens Jöckle, Franz-Xaver Portenlänger: Lower Parish Church of St. Sebastian Mannheim. Regensburg 2005, pp. 8-12.
  29. ^ A b Hans Huth: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Stadtkreis Mannheim I. Munich 1982, p. 490.
  30. ^ A b Hugo Schnell and Johannes Steiner (eds.): Our Parish Church St. Sebastian , (from the series Schnell Art Guide No. 1079) Verlag Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2005, p. 16.
  31. ^ New genealogical-historical news of the most distinguished events that happened at the European courts , Part 131, p. 34, Leipzig, 1761; (Digital scan of Therese Wilhelmine von Pollheim-Winkelhausen)
  32. ^ Hans Huth: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Stadtkreis Mannheim I. Munich 1982, pp. 490-492.
  33. ^ Hans Huth: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Stadtkreis Mannheim I. München 1982, p. 493.
  34. ^ Hans Huth: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Stadtkreis Mannheim I. Munich 1982, p. 502.
  35. ^ Hans Huth: Die Kunstdenkmäler des Stadtkreis Mannheim I. München 1982, p. 501, 511/512.
  36. ^ Jakob Baroggio: The history of Mannheim from its emergence to 1861. Mannheim 1861, p. 499, Digitalscan
  37. Hugo Droes: The grave monuments the Lower Parish in Mannheim , in: Mannheim Geschichtsblätter , 1921, column 83 u. 84; PDF scan with details of the person ( memento of the original dated August 12, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.stadtarchiv.mannheim.de
  38. ^ Tomb inscription by Johannes Franz Eugen von Savoyen from the Thesaurus Palatinus

Coordinates: 49 ° 29 ′ 21.2 ″  N , 8 ° 28 ′ 0.3 ″  E