Schwerin Cathedral: A Brick Gothic Cathedral in Germany
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- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
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- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- German, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Cathedral
On this page17 sections
History
Schwerin Cathedral is a Lutheran cathedral in Schwerin, Germany, formally dedicated to St Mary and St John. Built by the medieval church of the Schwerin bishopric, it developed from a Romanesque predecessor into a High Gothic brick basilica beginning around 1270. Since 1921 it has served as the preaching church of the leading bishops of the Mecklenburg Lutheran church, and under the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Northern Germany it shares that role with Lübeck Cathedral.
The Schwerin bishopric and the Romanesque church
Heinrich the Lion, the powerful twelfth-century duke of Saxony and Bavaria, conquered the lands of the Obotrites, a West Slavic people who had ruled parts of the region, and defeated their ruler Niklot during the Wendish Crusade. He then restored the bishopric of Mecklenburg. In 1167 Bishop Berno transferred its seat from Mecklenburg to Schwerin, a German town newly established in 1160. A bishopric was the territory and institutional jurisdiction governed by a bishop, and its cathedral was the principal church associated with that episcopal seat.
A consecration ceremony took place in the Romanesque predecessor church on 9 September 1171. Heinrich the Lion attended with Count Gunzelin I of Schwerin, Duke Pribislav of Mecklenburg, Bishop Evermod of Ratzeburg, and Bishop Berno. The apse, the rounded or polygonal end of the church’s sanctuary, may already have been complete and in use at this time.
The Romanesque cathedral was consecrated on 15 June 1248 after at least 77 years of construction. It measured approximately 60 metres in length, about 40 metres shorter than the present building, and its tower rose only scarcely as high as the later Gothic nave. When the old tower was demolished, nearly all of the predecessor disappeared. Its south tower portal, however, was incorporated into the southwest side of the present cathedral.
The Holy Blood and the Gothic rebuilding
Count Henry of Schwerin returned from a crusade in 1222 with a relic of the Holy Blood, described as a supposed drop of Christ’s blood enclosed in a jasper stone. The relic made Schwerin an important pilgrimage destination, and the Romanesque basilica soon proved too small for the pilgrims. Donations associated with the pilgrimage, together with competition from the prosperous Hanseatic cities of Wismar, Rostock, Stralsund, and Greifswald, helped prompt a complete rebuilding.
Work on the Gothic cathedral began around 1270, and construction on the “new choir” is recorded by about 1272. The choir, the eastern side aisles of the transept, and the chapter house with its sacristy and library were complete by 1327. A chapter house was the meeting place of the cathedral chapter, the body of clergy responsible for administration and liturgical duties. Once the new choir could be used for worship, the Romanesque church was completely demolished.
The precise sequence of work on the transept and nave remains uncertain. Apart from their vaults, both were substantially complete by the end of the fourteenth century. Builders from Stralsund finished the nave windows and vaulting in 1416, bringing the medieval construction history of the High Gothic cathedral to an end after approximately 146 years.
The cathedral’s medieval pilgrimage route began outside the church at the so-called Jerusalem Mount, probably near Lake Ostorf. It symbolically reproduced Christ’s route from Jerusalem to Golgotha. Pilgrims entered through a side-aisle portal and passed relics displayed in the chapels around the ambulatory, the passage running around the main choir.
Reformation, alteration, and later additions
The Reformation, the decline of medieval liturgical practice, and a thorough renovation under Barca in 1815 caused extensive losses to the historic furnishings. The rich furnishings of the Holy Blood Chapel had already been destroyed during the Reformation, and Duke Johann Albrecht is recorded as having burned the blood relic around 1550. The medieval choir screen and rood screen, which separated the clergy’s choir from the nave, were removed with an associated clock in 1585. An inventory from 1553 listed 42 side altars, none of which survives, and the medieval choir stalls have also been lost.
The crossing once carried a small roof turret visible in old prints. Building research established that it survived until 1703, when it was removed because it had become structurally unsafe. The present west tower was added much later, in Neo-Gothic form between 1889 and 1893. Arthur von Bernstorff donated it in 1888, and the work was carried out under building councillor Georg Daniel. The tower is therefore not part of the medieval building.
Wartime fighting at the end of the Second World War destroyed the medieval stained-glass windows. Plain, colourless replacement panes were installed and remained in place. A new series of coloured windows designed by Günther Uecker was being introduced in the 2020s, with a model window installed on 2 September 2022. Seven nineteenth-century ceremonial sarcophagi of the grand-ducal family, lowered into crypts in 1975, were restored and returned to their original positions in 2018.
The cathedral also received important furnishings from elsewhere. The Triumph Cross, made in 1420, originally belonged to St Mary’s Church in Wismar, whose nave was demolished by blasting in 1960. After restoration, the cross was transferred to Schwerin Cathedral in 1990, and the accompanying figures of Mary and John were restored in 2002. In 2024 the cathedral became part of the Schwerin Residence Ensemble UNESCO World Heritage property. It is described as the only true cathedral in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and the only surviving medieval building in Schwerin.
Music and worship
An organ is known at the cathedral through the presence of a cantor from the mid-thirteenth century and an organist by 1343. Antonius Mors built a new instrument in Antwerp between 1557 and 1560. Johann Georg Stein the Younger rebuilt it from 1790 to 1792, and Ernst Julius Marx completed the work in 1795 with 84 stops on three manuals and pedal. Further repairs followed in 1840 and 1858.
Friedrich Ladegast began constructing the present principal organ in 1868, and it was dedicated in 1871. Apart from minor alterations by Leopold Nitschmann in 1962, it remains substantially original. The Potsdam Schuke organ workshop completed its restoration in 1988. Since 1993, Jan Ernst has served as organist and cathedral cantor.
Remains
Schwerin Cathedral is a three-aisled brick Gothic basilica with a large three-aisled transept, an ambulatory choir, and chapels arranged around the eastern end. It is 105 metres long, and its vaults rise 26.5 metres. A white quatrefoil frieze beneath the gables and roof eaves visually connects the different sections. The west tower reaches 117.5 metres, making it the highest church tower in eastern Germany and the tallest structure in Schwerin.
Choir, transept, and nave
Eastern choir and chapels
The eastern choir ends in a five-eighths polygon, formed by five sides of an octagon, with five choir chapels attached. Its ambulatory arrangement, partly modelled on the choir of Lübeck Cathedral, belongs among the early examples of this form in brick Gothic architecture. The chapel roofs create one continuous pent roof rather than separate roofs over each chapel. Roof beams rest on piers inserted between the chapels, a design later influential in Doberan and Rostock, although the piers narrow the chapels’ side windows.
The ambulatory vaults follow models associated with the cathedrals of Soissons and Quimper. The chapels share their vaulting with the ambulatory rather than having individually vaulted spaces. At the eastern sides of the transept, two chapels were inserted during the first building phase, before the main transept was constructed. The northern chapel is dedicated to the Assumption of Mary, while the dedication of the southern chapel is unknown and has been conjecturally identified as a simple Marian chapel. They are the cathedral’s only inserted chapels.
Transept and entrances
Unlike the brick Gothic churches of Lübeck and Stralsund, Schwerin Cathedral has a prominent transept, the cross-arm of a church plan. This follows the traditional High Gothic cathedral plan and is unusual in early brick Gothic architecture. The transept is approximately 1.5 metres higher than the choir. Its south side became the principal entrance, with a four-part pointed-arch window on each side of the portal, a string course running around it, and stair turrets at both corners. The turrets have slender spires and pointed-arch blind arcades rising from the gables.
The main south portal has a later door and tympanum. Two further south-side portals, beside the nave and choir and to the right of the sacristy, carry the arms of bishops from the von Bülow family. Their original brass plaques were replaced by copies for conservation reasons. The eastern of these entrances, known as the Priests’ Door, has round-shafted jambs and capitals made from lime stucco.
Nave and Paradies Portal
The nave is the youngest medieval part of the cathedral and differs in some respects from the more unified choir and transept. Prominent buttresses were inserted to secure its higher vault. Its windows, known as Stralsund windows, end in blunt triangles rather than pointed arches. A chronicle connects the completion of the nave with a penance imposed on the people of Stralsund after three priests were burned.
The Paradies Portal, in the westernmost bay of the nave beside the south tower aisle, is the oldest surviving part of the cathedral and the oldest surviving building fabric in Schwerin. It belongs to the final construction period of the Romanesque predecessor, before 1249, and combines Romanesque and Gothic characteristics. It probably served as an entrance for the congregation. Its name is technically misleading, because “paradise” in church architecture normally describes an attached entrance hall, whose existence at the Romanesque cathedral is unknown.
The choir and nave each contain four bays. Rib vaults cover their aisles, while the nave also has a ridge rib. The crossing has a star vault, and the remaining parts of the transept have net vaults. The interior elevation has two zones and no triforium, an intermediate gallery or passage, so the arcades lead directly to the clerestory, the upper storey of windows. High aisle roofs make the clerestory windows short, while their splayed surrounds descend to the frieze above the arcades and are blind below that level.
Cloister and surviving medieval fabric
The north cloister served the cathedral canons as residential and administrative accommodation rather than housing monks. It supported their liturgical duties at the many altars, and two portals in the choir connect it with the cathedral. The east wing, containing the chapter house and dormitory, was begun in 1392. The north and west wings were completed around 1463, and an upper storey was added throughout in 1484.
A fire in 1886 led to major alterations to the upper storeys and roofs. The eaves frieze, the vine-leaf frieze between the floors, the dormers, and the courtyard stair turret are Neo-Gothic additions. Medieval fabric survives most clearly in the lower storeys and in the rib-vaulted passage through the north wing. The cloister courtyard contains a cemetery with surviving grave slabs.
Paintings and colour
The present interior colouring reproduces the church’s late-medieval scheme, reconstructed in 1988 after repeated overpainting. Only a small amount of the formerly sparse wall painting survives. The Assumption Chapel retains important remains on its walls and ceiling. Medallions showing scenes from the Old Testament were painted over older vine ornament in the vault caps, while the north wall preserves red-chalk sketches of medallions containing biblical scenes.
A monumental image of Christopher survives on the south transept wall, left of the window, with traces of a river and aquatic plants at his feet. Christopher was traditionally associated with protection for travellers. A once monumental image of Mary on the west wall was lost through repeated overpainting and replastering.
The Holy Blood Chapel at the apex of the choir once had extensive painted decoration, including portraits of its benefactors on both side walls. Those paintings are lost, while the outer faces of the eastern choir piers retain well-preserved figures of saints. The Neo-Gothic painting of 1867 in the ambulatory chapels has been retained for conservation reasons.
The best-preserved wall painting is on the triumphal arch between the crossing and choir. It shows a head inside a medallion carried by angels. Its identity remains uncertain: it has been interpreted either as the severed head of John the Baptist on Salome’s platter or as Christ with a halo.
Altars, crosses, and memorials
Altarpieces and cross
The former High Choir altarpiece survives as a Gothic winged altarpiece in the first choir bay. Bishop Konrad Loste donated it in 1495, and a reconstructed inscription identifies him as its donor. His testament assigned 1,000 Lübeck marks for requiem masses at the altar, near which his tomb stood. The retable, the decorated structure behind an altar, and its wings survive, while the predella, its lower section, and other parts are lost. The combination of stone and wood is unusual.
The central sandstone image, made around 1420 to 1430, presents the Carrying of the Cross, the Crucifixion, the Harrowing of Hell, and Hell overwhelmed beneath the guardians of Christ’s tomb. The Harrowing of Hell is the Christian doctrine and artistic subject of Christ’s descent among the dead after his crucifixion. The scene includes St George, angels collecting Christ’s blood in chalices, guards represented by a rotunda, Satan in chains, and Christ freeing the righteous of the Old Covenant. Small foxes probably symbolize heretics, and a fox carrying a goose appears beneath the cross. Mary and John, the cathedral’s patrons, stand beside the central panel, while apostles and saints fill the wings. St Ansverus appears at the lower left of the left wing.
The Neo-Gothic Crucifixion Altar at the end of the High Choir was designed by Hermann Willebrand, dedicated on Christmas Day 1845 by chief court preacher Friedrich Carl Ernst Walter, and painted by Gaston Lenthe. A central altar installed in 1936 carried an image by Nils Graf Stenbock-Fermor. It shows Christ among five representatives of social estates in historicist dress, a priest, knight, peasant, councillor, and king, alongside a figure interpreted as a young worker or agricultural labourer. Associated with religious socialism and controversial at the time and afterward, the painting lost its altar function in 1938 and now hangs in the northern ambulatory opposite the Thomas Chapel. The knight and kneeling king were traditionally modelled on cathedral preacher Karl Kleinschmidt and pastor Aurel von Jüchen.
The 1420 Triumph Cross is painted in colours symbolizing the Tree of Life and the vine, victory, and joy. It is accompanied by the restored figures of Mary and John. New coloured windows designed by Günther Uecker were being produced for the south, north, and two west windows of the altar area. Each measures approximately 10 to 12 metres in height. Their blue backgrounds evoke Mary’s mantle, the sky, the Mecklenburg Lake District, and the Baltic Sea, while also recalling the cathedral’s architectural history.
Grave slabs and dynastic monuments
Two important medieval episcopal grave slabs are mounted on the north transept wall. Each depicts two bishops of the von Bülow family. Formerly positioned in the High Choir, where the bishops’ graves traditionally lay, they were moved in 1846. Cast and then engraved, the slabs belong to the Lower Rhine and Flemish artistic tradition.
The older slab shows its bishops with open eyes and raised blessing gestures. The younger shows them with closed eyes and depicts the probable builders of the choir and transept, Gottfried and Friedrich von Bülow. It has richer groups of saints and allegorical figures beneath tracery canopies, as well as a banquet, the abduction of a woman by shaggy Wild Men, and knights pursuing them.
Epitaphs and sarcophagi commemorate Mecklenburg dukes and their families. Among the principal monuments are the tomb of Christoph of Mecklenburg and Elisabeth of Sweden, and the sarcophagi of Paul Frederick of Mecklenburg and his wife Alexandrine. Elisabeth commissioned the tomb of herself and Christoph in the northern ambulatory chapel. Made in 1594 to 1596 by the workshop of the Flemish sculptor Robert Coppens, with assistance from the Pomeranian painter Georg Strachen, it shows the couple kneeling before a prayer desk. An epitaph of Duchess Helena of Mecklenburg was cast in 1527 in the Nuremberg workshop of Peter Vischer.
Baptismal font
The late-fourteenth-century bronze baptismal font consists of an octagonal basin supported by eight figures. Canopies divide its sides into paired fields, although the identities of the figures are uncertain. An inscription around the canopies quotes the antiphon Vidi aquam, a liturgical text based on the Book of Ezekiel that describes water flowing from the right side of the temple.
Tower bells and the Ladegast organ
The tower contains five bells tuned to B-flat, E-flat, F, G, and A-flat. The largest weighs 4.8 tonnes, and it and two other bells were cast in Karlsruhe in March and April 1991 by Peter and Margarete Schilling of Apolda. Two older bells date from 1363 and 1470. The 1363 bell, known as the Petermännchen Bell, came from a church outside Schwerin and was assigned to the cathedral from the Hamburg bell cemetery after 1945. The 1470 bell was hidden and survived wartime confiscation. Because the Petermännchen Bell does not harmonize well with the other four, it is rung alone.
The Ladegast organ has four manuals, mechanical slider chests, and a mechanical cone chest for the large pedal stops. A Barker machine allows every manual to be operated from the lowest keyboard. Its early pneumatic stop action, reportedly the first used in Germany, enabled an early form of crescendo roller and continuous dynamic control. The instrument has 84 speaking stops and approximately 5,200 pipes, making it the largest Ladegast organ by number of stops.
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