St. Georg, Lübeck: A Brick-Gothic Village Church
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern
- Civilizations
- Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page12 sections
History
St. Georg is a brick-Gothic village church in Genin, Germany, now part of Lübeck-Moisling. Its present building originated in the thirteenth century, within the medieval period, and it served a settlement belonging to the Lübeck Cathedral Chapter. The church remains a Protestant place of worship at the Genin cemetery.
Chapter village and parish
In 1149, Count Adolf II of Schauenburg donated Genin to Bishop Vizelin as an endowment for the bishopric then based at Oldenburg. After the bishopric moved to Lübeck under Bishop Gerold, the donation was confirmed in 1163 as part of the foundation and endowment of Lübeck Cathedral and its chapter. The Cathedral Chapter was the corporate body of canons responsible for Lübeck Cathedral’s administration, endowment, and religious affairs. Genin therefore became a chapter village, a settlement belonging to that institution.
Genin was separated from Holstein in 1326 during the construction of Lübeck’s Landwehr, a medieval defensive boundary system of earthworks and ditches around the city’s territory. Until the Cathedral Chapter was secularized in 1803, Genin belonged to the small group of chapter villages within the Landwehr. A settlement with the Duke of Oldenburg transferred it permanently to Lübeck in 1804.
A church at Genin is first documented in 1286. Apart from Hamberge, Genin was the only Cathedral Chapter village with its own church. The original parish comprised Genin, Oberbüssau, Niederbüssau, and Vorrade. Moisling and other manorial villages were added later, and the parish eventually included Moisling, Vorrade, Oberbüssau, Niederbüssau, Moorgarten, and Niendorf.
Reformation and rebuilding
The Reformation, the sixteenth-century religious transformation that divided Western Christianity and led many northern European churches toward Protestant worship, followed a politically unsettled course in Lübeck. During the unrest associated with Jürgen Wullenwever’s period as mayor, Bishop Eberhard of Holle guaranteed the continuation of Catholic services at St. Georg in 1561. Catholic worship continued until the death of Pastor Lorenz Brüningk in 1584.
The church was lengthened in the fifteenth century and substantially renewed and enlarged around 1600. The early-eighteenth-century rebuilding suffered a major failure when the ceiling collapsed in 1703. The Cathedral Chapter financed reconstruction through a lottery, and the interior furnishings were gradually adapted to the Baroque style, associated with the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The earlier Gothic altar was replaced in 1719.
In 1759, the lords of the Moisling and Niendorf estates commissioned galleries along the north wall, reached through a separate entrance. The Cathedral Canons reserved the central and largest gallery. A further gallery was built beside the organ gallery in 1770 and removed in the 1960s.
Modern conservation and the bells
Fundamental renovation and alteration took place between 1973 and 1978. The original interior painting was restored, while dark overpaint applied around 1900 was removed from the altar, pulpit, and organ case so that their earlier coloration could be recovered. A new organ was acquired in 1977.
The bell history also records the church’s connection with the Cathedral Chapter. The 1661 sermon bell, cast by Nicolaus Gage of Lorraine and Stephan Wollo, is the earliest bell mentioned in the parish chronicle. Two funeral and children’s bells were cast in 1683 and 1693. After both later bells cracked, Lübeck council bell founder Johann Hinrich Armowitz recast bells of the same names and weights in 1757.
In 1940, the small children’s bell was intended for wartime melting, while the sermon bell was taken to the Hamburg bell cemetery for storage. Both survived the war and returned to Genin, although the sermon bell was damaged during removal. A new children’s bell was cast by the Rincker foundry at Sinn in 1964, after the idea arose during a confirmation group’s tower visit in 1958. It now rings at funerals.
Remains
Church structure
St. Georg is a single-nave brick-Gothic church, meaning that one main longitudinal space forms the interior. Its choir ends in a polygonal plan presenting five sides of an octagon. Square additions with cross vaults were built at the same time on both sides of the choir’s second bay, a structural section of the building. Their construction was probably connected with difficulties in vaulting the main structure.
The church reached its present length during the fifteenth-century extension, when the nave probably had a flat ceiling. Around 1600, a massive tower was added, and the nave was raised and widened until its plan became almost square. The rebuilding after the 1703 ceiling collapse created the ceiling seen today, with flat wooden beams supporting a wooden false vault, a vault-shaped but non-structural surface beneath the upper ceiling. This work gives the interior its Baroque character.
Altarpiece and baptismal font
High altar
The Baroque high altar was made of marble and wood in 1719 in the Lübeck workshop of Hieronymus Hassenberg. Its lower section, or predella, carries a relief of the Last Supper, while a freestanding Crucifixion group occupies the central niche. The Lübeck merchant family Süverck donated the altar in memory of Hermann Joachim Süverck, who died in a duel in 1717. The gift also expressed gratitude for the Cathedral Chapter’s permission to bury him in the church.
Baptismal font
A sandstone baptismal font was donated in 1729 by the Lübeck merchant Meno Froböse, who had grown up in Genin as the son of a pastor. Made by Lübeck sculptor Hermann Andreas Elleroth, it imitates a small ancient altar and has a matching baptismal cover. A railing surrounds the font.
Galleries and chancel sculpture
The central section of the Rococo gallery built in 1759 by Johann Adam Soherr was reserved for the Cathedral Canons. The two outer sections belonged to the lords of the Moisling and Niendorf estates. Above the chancel arch stands a fully sculpted stucco Crucifixion group dating from 1706.
Bell tower
The 1661 bell bears the Cathedral Chapter’s coat of arms and relief decoration showing pelicans and other griffin-like animals. Bells cast or recast for the chapter also carry the Lübeck cathedral cross or the chapter arms. The 1964 children’s bell has an inscription based on that year’s biblical motto, and a memorial plaque at its yoke recalls the history of the Genin children’s bell and its casting.
Organ
The historic organ facade, probably dating from the beginning of the eighteenth century, was retained when the old instrument was dismantled. More than 200 years old at that time, the organ had an undocumented construction history. Its facade was stripped of a bright oil-paint finish and restored to the dark natural tone of old oak.
A new instrument installed in 1905 by Kempper & Son had 15 speaking stops on two manuals and a pedal, with one free and three fixed combinations and four couplers. Its voicing was adapted to the church interior. Behind the historic organ prospect, the visible facade of an organ, Emanuel Kemper and Martin Bober built a new instrument in 1976 and 1977. It has 16 stops on two manuals and pedal, with mechanical action.
