St. Elizabeth's Church(German:Elisabethkirche)is anEvangelicalchurch inMarburg,Germany.Built by theTeutonic Orderon the site ofElizabeth of Hungary'stomb in the 13th century, the church is one of the earliestGothicchurches in Germany.[1]Her tomb made the church an importantpilgrimagedestination during thelate Middle Ages,and theLandgraves of Hessewere interred in the church. After the conversion ofLandgrave Philip Iin the 16th century, the church became Protestant, and remains a parish of theEvangelical Church of Kurhessen-Waldeck.
| St. Elizabeth's Church | |
|---|---|
Elisabethenkirche | |
 Seen from the southwest in 2022 | |
 | |
| 50°48′54″N8°46′12″E/ 50.8149°N 8.7699°E | |
| Location | Elisabethstraße 3 Marburg,Hesse |
| Country | Germany |
| Denomination | Evangelical Church in Germany |
| Previous denomination | Roman Catholic Church |
| History | |
| Founded | 1235 |
| Founder(s) | Conrad of Thuringia |
| Dedication | Mary, Mother of God |
| Cult(s)present | Saint Elizabeth of Hungary |
| Architecture | |
| Style | Gothic |
History
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Saint Elizabeth founded a hospital for the sick and needy in Marburg in 1228, dedicated toFrancis of Assisi.She died there in 1231, and was buried in a simple tomb inside of the hospital's modest Chapel of St. Francis. Immediately following her death, Elizabeth's grave became a site of pilgrimage and alleged healing miracles. In 1234, Elizabeth's widowed husband,Conrad of Thuringia,donated the hospital to the Teutonic Knights, who undertook a comprehensive expansion of the pilgrimage infrastructure at the hospital.[2][3]
Construction on the current structure started in 1235, the year Saint Elizabeth wascanonized.Pope Gregory IXgranted the church the authority to issueindulgencesin a letter dated 30 May 1235, and the cornerstone was laid on 14 August of the same year. Elizabeth's grave was not moved, as the north apse of the new church was built on top of the original Hospital Chapel.[3]On 1 May 1236, in the presence of Emperor Frederick II, her body was ceremoniouslytranslatedto a new bejeweled shrine. Construction proceeded rapidly, as the church was built on a unified foundation. Thecrossing,and triplechoirwas completed in the 1240s, and in 1249, furtherrelicswere brought to the church. A two-storey sacristy was completed by 1261, and the church wasconsecratedin 1283. However, the towers were not finished until 1340. The church was the property of the Order of the Teutonic Knights; some buildings of the Order still exist near the church, among them theDeutschhausgut,which now houses themineralcollection and the department of geography of thePhilipps University of Marburg.
Although the church was named after Saint Elizabeth and referred to as such in most official communications, its official dedication was toMary, Mother of God,the patroness of the Teutonic Order. For this reason, the church contains many depictions of Mary. In 1290, after the completion of the High Altar, Elizabeth's shrine were moved to the sacristy.
From 1240 to 1509, theLandgravesofHessewere buried in the south choir of the church in the so-calledLandgrave's Choir.In the context of theReformation,Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse had Elizabeth's remains removed, in order to deter pilgrims from the Protestant city of Marburg. Herskullandtibiaewere brought to St. Elizabeth Convent inVienna,and an elaborate arm reliquary found its way to the chapel of Sayn Palace, at the foot ofSayn Castle.[4][5]TheSkull Reliquary of St. Elizabethwas looted fromMarienberg FortressinWürzburgand is now in theSwedish History Museum,Stockholm.[6]
Most of the knights and clerics of the Order who were attached to the church converted toProtestantismduring the 16th century, and the church was used for Protestant services from 1539 on. However, due to theImperial Immediacythat the church held, it remained officially Catholic until 1570, when the last Catholic bailiwick commander of the order in Hesse died. In 1605, Landgrave Moritz converted to Calvinism andorderedall images west of the choir screento be destroyed.The church was damaged during the Seven Years War, and was used as apowder magazineand warehouse. Restoration works were undertaken from 1767 to 1770. From 1811 to 1827, the church was aSimultaneum,meaning that both Catholic and Protestant services were held in different parts of the church.[7]Further renovations were done between 1854-1861 and 1930-1931.
For the duration of theSecond World War,the five gothic altarpieces and medievalstained glass windowswere moved to Haina Abbey for safekeeping. The church was mostly undamaged by the war, although the north wall of the nave was damaged by shrapnel in a 1944 air raid. The sarcophagi ofFrederick the GreatandFrederick William I,originally in theGarrison ChurchinPotsdam,and those ofPaul von Hindenburgand his wifeGertrud,originally in theTannenberg MemorialinEast Prussia,were moved to St. Elizabeth's by AmericanMonuments Menin Summer 1945, after the sarcophagi were found, hidden fromSovietcapture, in a Thuringian salt mine. The bodies of the Prussian kings were moved toHohenzollern Castleon the initiative ofLouis Ferdinand of Prussiain 1951, however, the Hindenburg couple was permanently interred in the northern tower chapel of St. Elizabeth's.[8]
In 1954, the church was made an independent parish, and in 1969, ownership of the building was transferred from the Hessian state to the Evangelical Congregation of Marburg. Several archeological excavations since have yielded rich insights into the church's status as a medieval center of the Teutonic Order and pilgrimage site, including hundreds of pilgrims' graves below the nave. A comprehensive renovation, aimed at restoring the original interior paint scheme, was begun in 2021 and completed in 2024. Further renovation works began on the stained glass in 2023.[9]
Architecture
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The church is one of the earliest purelyGothicchurches inGerman-speaking areas, and is held to be a model for the architecture ofCologne Cathedral.It is built fromsandstonein a cruciform layout, and is considered by architectural historians to be an early example of a hall church with an attachedtriconch choirat the east end of the church. Thenaveand its flankingaisleshave avaultedceiling more than 20 m (66 ft) high. The triconchchoirconsists of the northern Elisabeth Choir, the eastern High Choir and the southern Landgrave Choir. Thecrossingis separated from the nave by a stonechoir screen.In earlier times, the front part of the church had been reserved for the knights of the Order. The church has two towers with an approximate height of 80 m (263 ft). The northern one is crowned by a star, the southern one by a knight. The representative west portal of the church, completed in 1270, shows the Virgin Mary flanked by angels in a floral setting.
The High Choir of the church, completed in 1249, contains six 13th and 14th-century stained glass windows, which are representative of a transitional Romanesque-Gothic style. Most of the stained glass windows in the church were heavily damaged in the Seven Years War, and remnants were put together haphazardly. Only after a restoration in the 1970s was the actual order of images in theElizabeth Window,depicting the life and deeds of Saint Elizabeth, reconstructed.[10]The church also contains a number of 19th- and 20th-century stained glass windows.
At the corner of the northern (Elisabeth) choir, there is a large mausoleum dating to 1280, which is situated above the spot where Elizabeth was originally laid to rest in St. Francis' Hospital Chapel, before her shrine was moved to the sacristy.[11]The church also contains five significant Gothic altars, the most valuable of which is thepolychromed1290 High Altar.[12]The Altar of the Cross, situated in front of the choir screen, is topped with a crucifix byErnst Barlach,commissioned in 1931 to commemorate the 700th anniversary of Elizabeth's death. This crucifix was removed from the church in 1936 as an example ofDegenerate Art,however, it was spared from destruction and placed back on the altar following the fall of theNazis.[13]
The Gothic shrine of St. Elizabeth is the most important treasure of the church. It was begun in 1235 and completed in 1249 upon the translation of Elizabeth's relics to the new choir. It is constructed of oak, sheathed in gilded silver and copper, and covered in pearls and gems sourced from the Mediterranean, including an original three dozenengraved gems.Many of these gems have been lost to looting and burglary since the shrine's first display, most recently in a 1920 burglary. It is now encased in glass. The pseudo-architectural shrine is lined by sculptures of Christ and the Apostles, while the roof of the shrine shows scenes from the life of Elizabeth and Mary, along with a crucifixion group.
St. Elizabeth's church also contains a wealth of other treasures, including the original choir screen andpulpit,misericords,sacrament niche andpiscina.
St. Elizabeth's has hosted a number of organs since the 16th century. The church's main organ is a 2006Klaiswith 57registersacross three manuals and pedals. There is an additional choir organ, built in 1960 by Werner Bosch, and a 2006 Gerhard Woehlpositive organ,intended to produce an earlybaroquesound.[14]
St. Elizabeth's church has served as an inspiration for numerous churches, including the roughly contemporary Church of our Lady inFrankenberg,theNeogothicSt. Paul's Church in Strasbourg,St. Elizabeth's Church inErzsébetváros,Budapest,St. Sebastian Church, Berlin,and St. Mary's Church inStuttgart.St. Martin's Episcopal ChurchinHouston,the largest such parish in the United States, is also closely based on St. Elizabeth's Church.[15]
St. Elizabeth's Church competes for the title of being the earliest fully Gothic building in Germany with a handful of other buildings in western Germany. These are the church atMarienstatt AbbeynearStreithausen,theLiebfrauenkircheinTrier,andTholey AbbeyinSaarland.[16][17][18]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^"Church of St. Elizabeth, Marburg".Religiana.Retrieved2022-09-15.
- ^Burke, L. (2016). A Sister in the World: Saint Elizabeth of Hungary in the “Golden Legend.”The Hungarian Historical Review,5(3), 509–535. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44390788
- ^abMeiborg, Christa; Braasch-Schwersmann, Ursula (2011)."Elisabeth von Thüringen: Ihr Hospital in Marburg und die Deutschordensniederlassung im 13. Jahrhundert. Archäologische Baubefunde und schriftliche Überlieferung".Mitteilungen der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Archäologie des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit(in German).23:197–218.doi:10.11588/dgamn.2011.1.17142.ISSN1619-1471.
- ^"Armreliquie der Hl. Elisabeth » Schloss Sayn".www.sayn.de.Retrieved2024-11-17.
- ^"Elisabethinenkirche".www.geschichtewiki.wien.gv.at(in German).Retrieved2024-11-17.
- ^"Elisabethrelikvariet - Uppslagsverk - NE.se".www.ne.se.Retrieved2024-11-17.
- ^Dehio, Georg (2008).Handbuch der Deutschen Kunstdenkmäler, Hessen I.Deutscher Kunstverlag.pp. 610–616.ISBN978-3-422-03092-3.
- ^"Sehenswürdiges - Elisabethkirche Marburg".www.elisabethkirche.de.Retrieved2024-11-17.
- ^Elizabethkirche."Zwischenstand zur Renovierung".
- ^Atkinson, C. W. (1991). “Mother of Love, Mother of Tears”: Holiness and Families in the Later Middle Ages. InThe Oldest Vocation: Christian Motherhood in the Medieval West(pp. 144–193). Cornell University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctvn1t9zn.9
- ^Jacobsen, W. (1997). Saints’ Tombs in Frankish Church Architecture.Speculum,72(4), 1107–1143. https://doi.org/10.2307/2865960
- ^König, Alexandra (2015).Marburg, Elisabethkirche - Hochaltar, 1290 fertiggestellt(Report).
- ^Lemberg, Margret (2006) Die Chorschranke in der Marburger Elisabethkirche. Ein Beispiel für die konfessionellen Auseinandersetzungen in Hessen und für den Wandel im Geschmack.Rathaus-Verlag, Marburg, ISBN 978-3-923820-86-3, pp. 132–134.
- ^"Orgel - Elisabethkirche Marburg".www.elisabethkirche.de.Retrieved2024-11-17.
- ^"History".ST MARTINS EPISCOPAL CHURCH.Retrieved2024-11-17.
- ^"Tholey: Ist die Abteikirche die älteste gotische Kirche Deutschlands? - St. Wendeler Land Nachrichten"(in German). 2019-02-03.Retrieved2024-11-17.
- ^"Abteikirche".Abtei Marienstatt(in German).Retrieved2024-11-17.
- ^"Liebfrauenkirche in Trier | Visit A City".www.visitacity.com.Retrieved2024-11-17.
- Hermann Bauer:Sankt Elisabeth und die Elisabethkirche zu Marburg.Marburg, Hitzeroth 1990ISBN3-89616-031-1(in German)
- Andreas Köstler:Die Ausstattung der Marburger Elisabethkirche. Zur Ästhetisierung des Kultraums im Mittelalter.Berlin, Reimer 1995ISBN3-496-01134-3(in German)
- Eberhard Leppin:Die Elisabethkirche in Marburg an der Lahn.Königstein, Langwiesche 1999ISBN3-7845-2913-5(in German)
External links
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- St. Elizabeth's Church(in German)