Wunderblutkirche (Bad Wilsnack)

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Wunderblutkirche, west and south side

The Wunderblutkirche St. Nikolai is a Protestant church in Bad Wilsnack in the Brandenburg town of Prignitz and the landmark of the health resort. The church was a pilgrimage destination of European standing from the end of the 14th to the middle of the 16th century after the belief in a host miracle had spread in 1383. After the Reformation , the first evangelical pastor of Wilsnack, Joachim Ellefeld , destroyed the alleged miracle hosts by burning them in front of witnesses in 1552. This eliminated the reason for the pilgrimages.

As an open church , the Wunderblutkirche is open daily today. A support association supports the preservation of the church as a cultural and church-historical monument and organizes, among other things, hikes on the old pilgrimage route Berlin – Wilsnack . In the Hanseatic city of Lübeck , the Kleverschusskreuz , a wayside cross from 1436, commemorates the pilgrims who made their way to Wilsnack from there. Another crossroad has been preserved in Havelberg .

history

The Kleverschusskreuz in Lübeck showed pilgrims the way to the pilgrimage church.
Crossroads to the Wilsnack Church in Havelberg

The events surrounding the miracle of the host, which led to the creation of the pilgrimage site of Wilsnack, have come down to us from contemporary sources. A first report comes from a provost in Havelberg who accompanied Bishop Thiderikus II (Dietrich) to Wilsnack in 1383. Further reports from 1447 and prints from the period between 1509 and 1520/21 refer to this provost. In 1586, the Protestant cathedral dean Matthäus Ludecus put together facts about the supposed miracle. Another summary of the sources and events was presented in 1881 by the pastor Ernst Breest from Wilsnack.

Creation of the legend

On August 16, 1383, knight Heinrich von Bülow took advantage of the absence of large parts of the Wilsnack community, which was in Havelberg for the annual cathedral consecration festival . He attacked Wilsnack and ten other villages and had them burned down. Knight von Bülow had long since raised claims over these villages, which is why he was at odds with their gentlemen Henning, Klaus and Gericke von Möllendorf and the diocese of Havelberg .

According to legend, the returning priest Johannes Calbutz searched the ruins of the burned down church and hid molten bell ore from the rubble. In the place of the altar was the charred oak plank of the altar plate, in which a small compartment was incorporated, in which three hosts were kept. In the opinion that there was nothing more to be found here, he did not examine the plank any further and returned to neighboring Lüben , where the community stayed overnight as Wilsnack was uninhabitable. During the following night the pastor heard a child's voice several times in a dream, asking him to return to the church and read mass there. When he and the congregation returned to the church on August 24th, they found the charred altar plate covered with a cloth, on which lay the three hosts, almost intact by the fire; each had a drop of red blood. After the mass, Calbutz took the hosts to Lüben for safekeeping.

As a result, further miraculous events occurred in the area. Five candles were burning in the Lüben church, two of which suddenly went out during mass. The three burning candles were then ceremoniously carried to Wilsnack, where they neither burned down nor went out despite the wind. Bishop Dietrich II von Havelberg found out about the events and traveled to Wilsnack in order to be informed personally. In the church he read a mass in which he placed a fourth host next to the three blood hosts, whereupon the blood stains on the three hosts increased. This event was testified by other clerics present , whereupon the bishop certified a miracle of the host .

In connection with the miracle of the host, miraculous incidents also occurred in the distant vicinity. Knight Dietrich Wenkstern mocked the wafers, whereupon he immediately went blind and only regained his sight after he worshiped God and the holy power of the wafers and vowed an annual penance to Wilsnack. In 1388 the Westphalian nobleman Geismar Berthold von Hansen is said to have been attacked and hanged by the knight Conrad Spiegel. Von Hansen pleaded for the help of the Wunderbluthostien and, after half a day still hanging on the gallows, was freed by the knight Conrad and asked for forgiveness; the rescued made a pilgrimage to Wilsnack.

The height of the pilgrimages

On February 20, 1384 Pope Urban VI. Wilsnack issued a letter of indulgence to rebuild the brick building as a pilgrimage church. As a result, the reputation of the blood miracle spread across Europe, and Wilsnack developed into one of the central pilgrimage sites in Northern Europe. In the course of the 15th century, the place rose to the fifth most important pilgrimage destination of the Christian West, whereby the place flourished economically. In 1396, pilgrim signs cast in Havelberg came onto the market in Wilsnack. Wilsnack was particularly popular with Bohemian pilgrims as a pilgrimage destination, whereupon Jan Hus in 1403 spoke out vehemently against the worship of the miraculous blood. The English mystic Margery Kempe was one of the pilgrims in 1433 , who described her pilgrimage in her autobiographical book The Book of Margery Kempe . The member of the Magdeburg Synod, the theologian Heinrich Tocke , examined the blood hostages in 1443. He found that there was only a mixture of crumbs and cobwebs left. However, the Havelberg bishop Konrad von Lintorff , together with Elector Friedrich II. Of Brandenburg , who commissioned the Franciscan theologian Matthias Döring to comment, and with the support of the Pope, pushed through against the ban sought by Magdeburg.

In 1447 Pope Eugene IV took a positive stance on the Wilsnack host cult in two bulls . A Dutch nobleman donated the window in the north transept in 1461. The miracle blood shrine, the fresco Christophorus , the colored windows, altars and sculptures date from after 1460. The display wall ( altar retable ) of the altar is a composite retable , the three components of which date from the late 14th to early 16th century .

The pilgrimage church also served the Brandenburg electors Friedrich Eisenzahn and Albrecht Achilles as a worthy setting for important state affairs. A meeting of princes took place there in 1440 for the foundation of the Swan Order, in 1472 a meeting with Christian I , the King of Denmark, and in 1476 and 1479 meetings with north German princes.

The number of pilgrims decreased from 1517 with the Reformation. The publishing house of Lübeck's Steffen Arndes distributed 1520 prints of the Wilsnack legend ( Historia inventionis et ostensionis vivifici Sacramenti ), as did Ludwig Dietz in Rostock a year later .

End of the miracle blood worship

After the Reformation was introduced in the Mark Brandenburg in 1539, Protestant and Catholic services took place. However, the evangelical pastor of Wilsnack, Joachim Ellefeld, did not agree with the worship of the host. Contrary to the order of the city council not to interfere in Catholic matters, Ellefeld and two helpers penetrated the sacristy on Saturday, June 5, 1552 , smashed the monstrance and burned the blood hostages stored in it . He was initially imprisoned by the Havelberg Cathedral Chapter on the Plattenburg , but then released and expelled from the country by order of Elector Joachim II . Hundreds of thousands of pilgrims traveled to Wilsnack during the pilgrimages, which lasted more than 170 years. As a result of the destruction of the host, the streams of pilgrims gradually ebbed in the course of the 16th century and caused an economic decline in the city.

Younger story

200 years later (1782) Friedrich Christoph von Saldern commissioned the master organ builder Adam Heinrich Rietz from Magdeburg to build an organ. During the war with France in 1806, the church served French troops as a hospital . In 1825 the small altar was built into the church because the large one in the choir was too far away from the congregation. By order of Crown Prince Friedrich , the stained glass windows were restored in 1881; their inscriptions refer to the royal glassworks in Berlin . Towards the end of the Second World War , the church was hit by a bomb, but it probably did not explode; the point of impact is recognizable to the west of the transept on the roof by a different color of the roof tiles.

The church was the scene of political actions in the final phase of the GDR . From October 1989, around a thousand people gathered on Mondays for peace prayer followed by a candle parade, in line with the Monday demonstrations in other cities in the GDR. The first post-reunification mayor, Dietrich Gappa, was elected in the church in May 1990.

architecture

The building history has not been conclusively clarified. The founding of the church, which burned down in 1383, dates back to around 1286 to 1300. Reconstruction began as early as 1384, accelerated by the miracle of the Host, and was completed around 1400. The church was built as a massive, three-aisled, cross-shaped hall church in the style of the north German brick Gothic . The preserved rectangular tower of the burned down church was not visibly integrated into the west facade of the church, which was subsequently given a sandstone portal. The west gable is a brick building from the second half of the 15th century. The short, unfinished nave of three bays encloses the tower in the first bay and only shows a roof turret itself . The transept stands in the middle between the nave and the choir with chapels to the east behind it. The Wunderblutkapelle is located on the southern part of the transept. The choir has a polygonal end of five sides of a decagon. Are preserved stained glass from the late Middle Ages. The high altar consists of three distinct and stacked altarpieces . The transept galleries, which are accessed via stair towers on the transept and a bridge-like, segment-arched entrance from a former bishop's curia on the north side, are striking . Overall, a relationship to the Lüneburg Michaeliskirche and the Stendal Cathedral can be recognized.

Bell jar

In 1471 the church received a big bell. It weighed 3,500 kg and was two meters in diameter. A few years after the introduction of the Reformation in Brandenburg, in the year the hosts were destroyed, Elector Joachim II had them hung together with other bells that had been transferred there in a tower specially added to his Berlin court church . From there it moved to the successor buildings of the cathedral. In June 1921 it became unusable for Empress Auguste Viktoria, who died in exile in Doorner, due to a jump after the unusually long death knell . Despite successful repairs, it shattered again in 1929. Brought to Lauchhammer to be melted down for a new casting , it was saved at the last hour in 1930 by telegram from the Berlin Märkisches Museum . The New Wilsnacker Bell was cast in Lauchhammer for the Berlin Cathedral . The bell was in the church hall of the museum from 1935 . It had survived the Second World War there unscathed when it was to be remelted in 1956 during the GDR era, this time in favor of a carillon for the museum. Difficulties in obtaining material for the reinforcement of the belfry delayed the implementation of the resolution. When in 1957 the newly appointed museum director Cay-Hugo von Brockdorff criticized his predecessor's “behavior untouched by scientific responsibility”, he also reversed the meltdown project and the bell was saved.

Wonder Blood Shrine

Wonderful blood shrine with painted doors

The most important work of art in the St. Nikolaikirche in Bad Wilsnack is the miracle blood shrine from the mid-15th century in the miracle blood chapel . The shrine is built into an ogival wall niche. The doors of the wooden shrine are painted on both sides. The gable of the shrine is adorned by two angels who hold up the monstrance with the Holy Blood. The outer wings of the doors show the Mass of Pope Gregory with the vision of Pope Gregory I (590-604) while celebrating the Mass. About it in Latin script: "This is the adoration of salvation ... wonderful to my eyes". Below the scene is a field with floral designs and a painted brick wall. On the inside of the left door, the Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) is represented in the form of a mercy seat , as a sign of the admiration of the miraculous blood. Including in Latin: "Oh trinity to be worshiped, oh unity to be confirmed, have mercy on us." The inside of the right wing bears the mockery of Jesus , who stands in front of his tormentors with a crown of thorns, nimbus, red cloak and loincloth. Above it is also a tape with Latin text. Below the compartment closed by the double doors there are further compartments, which are closed by four undecorated doors. All doors can be locked with elaborate iron locks.

The miracle blood chapel probably served as the family crypt of the Protestant patron family von Saldern after the Reformation from 1560 . From 1952 the graves were moved to the choir tombs and other areas of the church. The chapel was renovated and made accessible again. In 1992 the chapel was renovated and provided with underfloor heating.

  • The open shrine

  • Inside of the left door wing with the mercy seat

  • Inside of the right door wing with the mockery of Christ

Furnishing

The high altar of the church, donated by the Brandenburg Elector Friedrich II , is in three parts. The middle part dates from the first third of the 15th century and shows Mary surrounded by the twelve apostles . The upper part, a three- figure shrine, depicts the mother of Jesus with the fourteen helpers in need. In the center of the five-part reredos is a crescent Madonna , flanked on the left by two female busts and on the right by a monk and a bishop figure. The community altar dates from 1960.

The pulpit is a work of the late 17th century. It was donated by Jakob Friedrich von Saldern after the death of his wife Elisabeth von Bismarck (1659–1695). The pulpit is decorated with the Saldern coat of arms, a rose, and the Bismarck coat of arms, a three-leaf clover.

The Easter candlestick reminds of the pilgrims who made a pilgrimage from Hungary to the pilgrimage church. It is located in the choir room on the left at the level of the community altar.

  • Three-part composite retable on the high altar (14th - 15th centuries)

  • Pulpit, donated by Jakob Friedrich von Saldern at the end of the 17th century

  • Coat of arms of the von Saldern (left) and Bismarck (right) families on the pulpit

  • Easter candlesticks used by Hungarian pilgrims

The church has a number of sculptures, including the colored sandstone figure of Bishop Johann Wöpelitz on a pillar in the north nave from the late 14th century . It is close to the works from the area around the Prague Parlerwerkstatt am Lettner in Havelberg Cathedral . Possibly it is a figure of the church patron St. Nikolaus, which was subsequently reinterpreted as a representation of Bishop Wöpelitz. Wöpelitz was bishop in Havelberg from 1385 to 1401 . From the 15th century comes a three-foot tall figure of Mary with the baby Jesus. The sandstone sculpture is located in the choir on a crossing pillar.

The sandstone baptismal font is provided with eight heraldic shields, four of which are designed. With the paw cross, they show the coat of arms of the diocese of Havelberg, the coat of arms of Johann Wöpelitz as bishop of Havelberg, the coat of arms of the diocese of Lebus and the coat of arms of the diocese of Brandenburg .

  • Statue of the Havelberg bishop Johann von Wöpelitz

  • Miracle blood find
    memorial stone

  • Baptismal font

To the right and left of the organ there are two epitaphs . The right is dedicated to Matthias Friedrich von Saldern (born April 22, 1650; † June 3, 1680). The oval portrait, painted in oil on wood, has a putti on each side . Below is a relief depicting balers in war equipment with weapons. The epitaph to the left of the organ commemorates the Prussian court and chamber judge Friedrich August von Saldern (* June 28, 1694 - February 20, 1720) and his wife Elisabeth Charlotta von Saldern (* December 17, 1688; no date of death) as well as other members the family.

A memorial stone in the north transept, which is embedded in the masonry, is directly related to the blood miracle. The miracle blood stone shows two kneeling figures on its east side, who together hold a sacraments. They represent the Dominus Johannes Bielefelt and the Dominus Johannes Cabbues . Johannes Cabbues (presumably Cabues , † 1412) was a priest in Legde , Bielefelt around 1415 in Wilsnack.

In the north transept there are two grave slabs from the 16th century embedded in the church wall. One belonged to the grave of Burchard von Saldern, who together with his brother Jakob Wilsnack and had inherited the Plattenburg . The second tombstone is that of Rector Johann Tettendorf. He was a clergyman in Wilsnack until 1571 and died in 1572.

Events

  • Concerts, for example as part of the Prignitz Summer and the Brandenburg Summer Music
  • Exhibitions, lectures, readings
  • Specialist conferences, partly together with the Theological Faculty of the Humboldt University Berlin
  • Pilgrimage festival in August and Christmas market

Primary sources

  • Dyt ys dy inventions and miracles of the hilligẽ sacramentes tho der Wilsnagk . Jakob Winter, Magdeburg 1509, urn : nbn: de: gbv: 3: 1-194534 ( cradle print in Low German).
  • Historia inventionis et ostensionis vivifici sacramenti in Wilsnagk . Stephan Arndes, Lübeck 1520, urn : nbn: de: bvb: 12-bsb10160206-6 ( cradle print in Latin).
  • Van der Vyndinge and the miracles of the sacred Sacrament to der Wilßnack . Ludwig Dietz, Rostock 1521.
  • Matthäus Ludecus : Historia of the invention / miracle work and destruction of the supposed holy blood to Wilssnagk . Clemens Schleich, Wittenberg 1586 ( books.google.de ).

literature

Architecture and building history

  • Cornelia Aman: The stained glass of the Wilsnacker Nikolaikirche . In: Messages from the Association for the History of Prignitz . No. 4 , 2004, p. 5-77 .
  • Folkhard Cremer: The St. Nicholas and Holy Blood Church in Wilsnack 1383–1552. A classification of their designs to church architecture between Verden and Chorin, Doberan and Meissen in the mirror episcopal and nationalistic conflicts (=  contributions to the science of art . No. 63 ). Scaneg, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-89235-063-9 (dissertation, 1994 at the University of Marburg).
  • Georg Dehio : Handbook of the German art monuments. Brandenburg . Deutscher Kunstverlag, Berlin / Munich 2000, ISBN 3-422-03054-9 , p. 37-40 .
  • Karl-Uwe Heussner, Tilo Schöfbeck, Dirk Schumann: The late Gothic pilgrimage architecture in the Prignitz. Surprising results from medieval roof structures . In: Brandenburg Monument Preservation . No. 14 , 2005, ISSN  0942-3397 .
  • Gordon Thalmann: New findings on the building history and furnishings of the pilgrimage church St. Nikolai zu Wilsnack . In: Peter Knüvener, Dirk Schumann (Hrsg.): The Mark Brandenburg under the early Hohenzollers: Contributions to history, art and architecture in the 15th century (=  writings of the State Historical Association for the Mark Brandenburg ). New series 5. Lukas, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-86732-150-1 .
  • Gordon Thalmann: Wilsnack and Havelberg - traces of Bohemian art and architecture around 1400 in the diocese of Havelberg . In: Jan Richter, Peter Knüvener, Kurt Winkler (eds.): Karl IV .: An emperor in Brandenburg . Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin 2016, ISBN 978-3-945256-62-6 , pp. 125–129 (exhibition catalog for the exhibition of the same name at HBPG Potsdam).

Legend of miraculous blood and pilgrims

  • Felix Escher (Ed.): The Wilsnackfahrt: a pilgrimage and communication center of northern and central Europe in the late Middle Ages (=  European pilgrimage studies . Volume 2 ). Lang, Frankfurt am Main / Berlin / Bern / Vienna 2006, ISBN 978-3-631-54501-0 (a conference under the title took place from June 24th to 26th, 2005 in Bad Wilsnack).
  • Ernst Breest: The miraculous blood of Wilsnack (1383–1552) . In: Märkische research . No. 16 . Berlin 1881, p. 131-320 .
  • Paul Heinz (Ed.): The miracle blood of Wilsnack - Low German single-sheet print with 15 woodcuts from the period 1510–1520 (=  prints and woodcuts from the 15th and 16th centuries in faithful reproduction . No. 10 ). Heitz & Mündel, Strasbourg 1904 ( archive.org ).
  • Claudia Lichte: The staging of a pilgrimage: the rood screen in the Havelberg Cathedral and the Wilsnacker miracle blood . Wernersche Verlagsgesellschaft, Worms 1990, ISBN 978-3-88462-077-9 .
  • Hartmut Kühne , Anne-Katrin Ziesak (eds.): Miracles, pilgrimages, adversaries: The Wilsnackfahrt . Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 2005, ISBN 3-7917-1969-6 .
  • Rainer Oefelein : Brandenburg: Medieval Way of St. James Berlin - Wilsnack - Tangermünde . Conrad Stein, Welver 2008, ISBN 978-3-86686-189-3 (with tips for pilgrims by bike).
  • Olaf B. Rader : Hocus pocus. Blood hosts between belief in miracles and booth magic . Fink, Paderborn 2015, ISBN 978-3-7705-5738-7 .
  • Klaus Stolte: Ephemeral pilgrimage. The dispute over Wilsnack's miraculous blood as reflected in papal pronouncements, at the same time a contribution to the building history of the Nikolaikirche . In: Reports and research from the Brandenburg Cathedral Foundation . No. 1 . Traugott Bautz, 2008, ISSN  1866-4695 , p. 5-64 .
  • Gordon Thalmann: Saint Olav in the pilgrimage church to Wilsnack . In: Messages from the Association for the History of Prignitz . No. 17 , 2017, p. 25-34 .
  • Hartmut Kühne : "I went through fire and water ..." Comments on the Wilsnacker Heilig Blut legend . In: Gerlinde Strohmaier-Wiederanders (Hrsg.): Theology and culture: stories of an interrelation. Festschrift for the 150th anniversary of the Chair of Christian Archeology and Church Art at the Humboldt University in Berlin . Gursky, Halle 1999, ISBN 3-929389-26-6 , p. 51-84 ( opac.regesta-imperii.de ).

Web links

Commons : Wunderblutkirche Bad Wilsnack  - Album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikivoyage: Brandenburg Wonder Blood Path  - travel guide

References and comments

  1. ↑ Matthäus Ludecus : Historia of the invention / Wunderwercken and destruction of the supposed holy blood to Wilssnagk . Clemens Schleich, Wittenberg 1586 ( books.google.de ).
  2. ↑ Ernst Breest: The miracle blood of Wilsnack (1383-1552) . In: Märkische research . No. 16 . Berlin 1881, p. 131-320 .
  3. ↑ Possibly from the Moellendorff family
  4. ^ Rita Buchholz, Klaus-Dieter Gralow: De hystorie und erfindighe des hilligen Sacrament tho der wilsnagk (The story of the invention of the Holy Sacrament at Wilsnack) (=  Small series of publications on the history of Bad Wilsnack . No. 1 ). Bad Wilsnack 1992.
  5. ↑ a b c Paul Heinz (Ed.): The miracle blood of Wilsnack - Low German single-sheet print with 15 woodcuts from the period 1510–1520 (=  prints and woodcuts from the 15th and 16th centuries in faithful reproduction . No. 10 ). Heitz & Mündel, Strasbourg 1904 ( archive.org ).
  6. ↑ Figure of a Wilsnacker pilgrim sign on pilgerzeichenendatenbank.de.
  7. ↑ Dieter Berg (Ed.): Traces of Franciscan History. Chronological outline of the history of the Saxon Franciscan provinces from their beginnings to the present. Werl 1999, p. 167.
  8. ^ Renate Veigel: The church and town hall bells in the city museum Berlin. In: Reiner Güntzer (Ed.): Yearbook City Museum Berlin Foundation. Volume VI 2000, Henschel-Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89487-375-2 , p. 93.
  9. ↑ Hartmut Kühne: "I went through fire and water ..." Comments on the Wilsnacker Heilig Blut legend. Hall 1999, digitized version ( Memento from May 6, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  10. ↑ Ev. Church of St. Nikolai Bad Wilsnack, Schnell-Kunstführer No. 2125. Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1994, p. 37.
  11. ↑ Entry object doc. No. 09161186 List of monuments AIDAweb of the BLDAM Brandenburg.
  12. ^ Hans Josef Böker: The medieval brick architecture of Northern Germany. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1988, ISBN 3-534-02510-5 , pp. 215-217.
  13. ↑ For the history of the bell of the Wunderblutkirche see Renate Veigel: The church and town hall bells in the Berlin City Museum. In: Reiner Güntzer (Ed.): Yearbook City Museum Berlin Foundation. Volume VI 2000, Henschel-Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89487-375-2 , pp. 93-101; there also, unless otherwise stated, the following, Brockdorff quote (below) p. 101.
  14. ^ Walter Stengel : Chronicle of the Märkisches Museum der Stadt Berlin. In: Eckart Hennig, Werner Vogel (Ed.): Yearbook for Brandenburg State History. Volume 30: State Historical Association for the Mark Brandenburg e. V. (founded 1884). Berlin 1979, pp. 7–51, here p. 31.
  15. ↑ Ev. Church of St. Nikolai Bad Wilsnack, Schnell-Kunstführer No. 2125. Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 1994, pp. 12–15.
  16. ^ Ernst Badstübner: Brandenburg. DuMont art travel guide. DuMont Reiseverlag, Cologne 2010, p. 166.

Coordinates: 52 ° 57 '21.7 "  N , 11 ° 56" 44.8 "  E