Stadtkirche St. Jakobi: A Historic Evangelical Lutheran Church in Chemnitz
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Modern
- Civilizations
- German, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page16 sections
History
Stadtkirche St. Jakobi is an Evangelical Lutheran market and parish church in Chemnitz, Germany, near the Old and New Town Halls. Built and developed through Romanesque, Gothic, Gothic Revival, and modern phases, it is one of the city’s oldest surviving sacred buildings and belongs to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony.
Romanesque beginnings
Archaeological investigations carried out between 1953 and 1959 revealed the foundations of a Romanesque predecessor. The building comprised a rectangular hall, an eastern square choir, an apse, and a massive western tower block. Its form resembles several twelfth- and thirteenth-century village churches in northwestern Saxony and reflects the influence of the Augustinian Canons’ collegiate church at Wechselburg. Augustinian Canons were members of religious communities following the rule of Saint Augustine, and their collegiate church influenced sacred building in central Saxony between about 1170 and 1220.
The Romanesque church was associated with a period when established ecclesiastical institutions shaped the design of local sacred buildings. Excavations recovered numerous moulded architectural stones, including substantial sections of a round-arch frieze. These remains provide evidence for the character of the early church and its architectural connections within Saxony.
Early Gothic enlargement
Around 1230 to 1250, the Romanesque square choir and apse were demolished. In their place, an Early Gothic rectangular choir was built across four bays. Its buttresses and attached shafts show that it was vaulted, or intended to receive vaults. Two northern extensions were added, probably for use as a sacristy and possibly as a charnel house.
A city fire recorded in 1333 probably led to the complete rebuilding of the nave. Between about 1350 and 1365, the church received a three-aisled Gothic hall church, while the recently constructed Early Gothic choir was retained. A Gothic hall church has a nave and aisles of approximately equal height, creating a more unified interior than a church with a much taller central nave. The earlier western Romanesque tower was demolished to extend the church westward.
In the late fourteenth century, the western nave bay was divided into two levels. The upper level became a gallery, while the lower level formed an open vestibule known as the Paradise. After the Romanesque tower was removed, the nearby Hoher Turm, probably no longer in use for its earlier purpose, was adapted as the church’s bell tower. After 1335 it was raised with a bell storey containing pointed-arch sound openings, and it continues to serve as the Jakobikirchturm.
The medieval choir
Between 1405 and 1412, the Early Gothic choir was largely demolished and replaced by a much larger ambulatory choir. An ambulatory choir is a choir surrounded by a passage formed by the continuation of the side aisles. The new design followed principles used at St. Sebald in Nuremberg, with alternating square and triangular bays, while its net vault reflected influences from Bohemia. This work completed the church’s medieval construction.
Reformation and early modern changes
The Reformation reached Chemnitz in 1539. The rood screen, a partition that separated the choir from the nave and often carried a crucifix or gallery, was removed together with most of the side altars. A new pulpit was installed, wooden galleries were reportedly added to the aisles, and a new organ was placed in the choir. These changes adapted the medieval church to Lutheran worship.
A fire that struck the city in 1617 damaged St. Jakobi, its bell tower, and the town hall. The church roof burned, and falling parts of the tower destroyed the western bay of the central vault. The interior was largely spared, and the walls were repainted in 1667 with white surfaces and ash-gray pillars. From 1717, the side-aisle galleries were replaced by a two-storey gallery structure. Glazed prayer rooms and boxes were installed in the choir, and two-storey extensions containing further prayer rooms were built along the north and south sides of the nave.
A fire in the bell tower in 1746 destroyed its bells. Johann Gottfried Weinhold of Dresden cast replacements by 1749. In 1792, the immense Late Gothic high altar was dismantled and almost entirely destroyed. A Classical altar, funded by Chemnitz councillor Johann Georg Treffurth, took its place and included paintings by Adam Friedrich Oeser.
Nineteenth- and early twentieth-century remodelling
In 1848, later additions including the prayer rooms and Classical altar were removed. New Gothic-style furnishings, including a pulpit and galleries, were installed. Between 1875 and 1879, the exterior was extensively remodelled according to designs by Conrad Wilhelm Hase and under the direction of Hugo Altendorff. Hase was a German architect and architectural teacher known for historically oriented Gothic Revival designs. The church received a rich Gothic Revival appearance, although the proposed Gothic Revival remodelling of the bell tower was not carried out.
The Gothic Revival work added pinnacles to the west and nave facades, a large west rose window, a renewed gable peak above the central nave, a rising tracery balustrade, and elaborate gables and finials. The choir’s weathered blind tracery was completely renewed, largely following medieval forms. Medieval porphyry tuff was replaced with sandstone for this work and for other new exterior elements. The roof received slate covering with ornamental decoration and a steep-helmeted roof turret.
Serious deterioration in the Gothic Revival stonework led to the removal of the roof turret in 1903. Schilling and Graebner then undertook a complete redesign between July 1911 and September 1912, giving the church essentially its present exterior form. The former apostle statues were moved to the east side, and the west facade received new sculptural decoration. The redesign also extended the choir sacristy eastward and gave it a new entrance structure.
War damage and reconstruction
The air raids of 5 March 1945 caused extensive destruction in Chemnitz. St. Jakobi’s wooden roof structure, galleries, and seating burned, while its masonry, pillars, and vaults initially remained standing. The nave vault collapsed in August 1945, except in the side apses. In February 1946, the Jakobikirchturm fell southward into the ruins of the Old Town Hall.
A temporary roof protected the ambulatory choir from collapse. A simple brick wall separated it from the nave ruins, and the choir reopened for worship on Palm Sunday 1949. By 1950, the bell tower had been rebuilt up to the bell storey as part of the Old Town Hall complex. The large St. Jakobi bell, recovered from the bell cemetery at Hamburg-Veddel, was rehung in the new bell frame.
By 1958, about 700 cubic metres of debris had been cleared from the nave, and the surrounding walls had been protected from further deterioration. Between 1959 and 1961, a roof following the original form was installed over the nave and choir, using steel trusses instead of timber. A new roof turret, considerably higher than its Baroque predecessor, was also built. New windows were installed and the west facade repaired by 1967. Architect and church-building conservator Georg Laudeley planned and directed this work.
The first postwar interior reconstruction used a flat ceiling instead of the original vaults because of material shortages. The pillars and arcade arches were rebuilt faithfully, but monument-preservation authorities required the Gothic spatial form to be restored as far as possible. Work continued intermittently until 1974, when the Saxon regional church imposed a building halt so that funds could be used for other endangered churches.
Completion of the modern restoration
Until 1994, the nave had neither a floor nor plaster and remained beneath a simple timber ceiling, separated from the choir by the temporary partition wall. It was used as a building-material store. After 1990, it was cleared and from 1994 served for exhibitions, worship, and concerts.
Between 1997 and 1999, the roof, choir buttresses, window tracery, and west facade were restored. The enclosing walls were replastered and the windows reglazed. From 2004, the nave was rebuilt with vaults rather than retaining the postwar flat ceiling. Rabitz construction, a lightweight technique using a wire framework covered with plaster, was used instead of the original method. Modern replacement bosses were created for the lost central-vault bosses, and the restored nave was rededicated on 19 July 2009.
In 2012, removal of a brick facing revealed fragments of painted blind tracery in the southwest aisle bay. The fragments had been covered in 1557 when a two-storey gallery was installed, preserving them beneath the later construction. The heavily worn choir is being restored in several stages. St. Jakobi primarily serves the Evangelical Lutheran parish of St. Jakobi-Johannis in Chemnitz. The nave is used for Sunday worship, while the choir accommodates the Liturgy of the Hours, the structured cycle of communal Christian prayer at designated times of day, as well as smaller services. Musical events and exhibitions also take place in the church.
Remains
Medieval plan and construction
Stadtkirche St. Jakobi combines the remains and reconstructed forms of several building periods. The Romanesque predecessor had a rectangular hall measuring 19.65 metres by 11.60 metres, an eastern square choir measuring 7.90 metres on each side, an eastern apse, and a massive western tower block 16 metres wide. The excavated foundations and moulded stones, including parts of a round-arch frieze, preserve evidence of this early arrangement.
The principal medieval church is a three-aisled Gothic hall extending across five bays. Its side aisles end in polygonal apses, and the central space was originally covered throughout by cross-rib vaults resting on octagonal pillars set on square bases. The late-medieval ambulatory choir has a presbytery ending in a five-eighths polygon, a termination based on five of the eight sides of an imagined octagon. Side aisles continue around the inner choir to form the ambulatory, whose termination extends across nine sides of a sixteen-sided figure through alternating square and triangular bays.
Ambulatory choir and sacristy
The choir’s central space is covered by a net vault rather than a cross-rib vault. Its inner walls are articulated by a continuous frieze of blind tracery, a decorative pattern that resembles tracery without forming open windows. Outside, the choir follows the rich choir facade type. Its buttresses carry elaborate blind tracery corresponding to the tracery of the slender windows.
The choir sacristy was built with the ambulatory choir on its north side. It is rectangular and covered by a steep cross-rib vault. The 1911 to 1912 remodelling extended it eastward and added a new entrance structure. The choir’s surviving fabric is being restored in stages, while a glass partition now visually reunites the nave and ambulatory choir while allowing the two areas to function separately.
West facade and sculptural decoration
The 1875 to 1879 Gothic Revival remodelling gave the west facade its pinnacles, rose window, renewed gable peak, tracery balustrade, and elaborate gables and finials. Statues of the apostles Peter, Paul, Andrew, and John were placed on the four west buttresses. The choir’s exterior tracery was renewed in medieval forms, with sandstone replacing medieval porphyry tuff in the reconstructed and newly added elements.
The 1911 to 1912 redesign placed four new figures on the west facade, representing a scholar, worker, mother with child, and merchant under the theme “Pray and work.” The former apostle statues were moved to the east side. Four pointed-arch windows were inserted into the central facade. Above them were reliefs of the Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, followed by a monumental figure of Christ and five musical angels. The Chemnitz coat of arms, bearing a bust of the Apostle James, was placed above the central pointed-arch arcade. The north extension was raised by an additional storey and decorated with reliefs of a youth with a harp and a woman carrying a water jug, while a portrait of Martin Luther was placed on the upper storey.
Rebuilt nave
The postwar reconstruction faithfully reproduced the nave’s pillars and arcade arches. Its later vaults were rebuilt using Rabitz technique, allowing the Gothic spatial form to be recreated with a lightweight structure. New bosses in the central nave carry modern representations of the four Evangelists. Surviving bosses from the two side apses and the ante-choir bay were restored and returned to their intense Gothic colouring.
The rebuilt interior also includes modern elements designed to distinguish the new work from the medieval fabric. These include the glass partition, the stairway and cladding leading to the west gallery, the gallery in the north apse, the main-portal draught lobby, and the lighting fixtures. The floor is covered with ceramic tiles.
Altarpiece and sacred furnishings
The church contains a Late Gothic winged altar whose carved elements were made around 1504 by Peter Breuer, a late Gothic sculptor active in Saxony. Its wing paintings are attributed to Hans Hesse, a late Gothic painter. The central shrine shows the Crucifixion with Christ, Mary, Mary Magdalene, and John. The partly damaged wings show male and female saints and donor figures when open, and the Adoration of the Magi and the Flight into Egypt when closed.
The altar was originally made for Chemnitz’s Church of St. John. Its surviving elements were reunited in 1969 and 1970, when the shrine and predella were newly made. A predella is the lower platform or section of an altarpiece. The reunited altar returned to use at St. Jakobi at Easter 1970.
The present Renaissance pulpit was made in 1612 for the village church at Leuben near Dresden. After that church was demolished in 1905, the pulpit was stored and transferred to the Chemnitz congregation in 1949. Its surviving polygonal basket has tall rectangular panels bearing verses from the Old and New Testaments concerning Christ’s death on the cross. Andreas Göding painted the front with the Crucified Christ surrounded by the four Evangelists. Its column and sounding board remained in Dresden and are now lost.
A chalice-shaped baptismal font dates from around 1600 and was certainly made for a village church in the Dresden region. It reached Chemnitz in 1949 from a Dresden museum collection, although its original destination cannot be established. Floral ornament covers the font, and two snakes at the base represent sin overcome in baptism. The bowl depicts Christ’s baptism and the blessing of children, while traces of the original colouring and former cover survive.
Bells and organs
The bells comprise the large bell in the Hoher Turm and three smaller bells in the roof turret. Johann Gottfried Weinhold cast the large bell in Dresden in 1749. It survived the Second World War undamaged and bears inscriptions about its casting and restoration after the 1746 tower fire. The three smaller bells were cast by the Schilling foundry at Apolda. They have hung in the rebuilt roof turret since March 1966 and are identified by their inscriptions as the Prayer Bell, Wedding Bell, and Baptism Bell.
St. Jakobi’s organ history reflects repeated changes to the church and its furnishings. An instrument by Gabriel Raphael Rodensteen was installed around 1560, followed by a Baroque organ by Georg Lorenz Leube in 1677. Christian Ernst Friederici installed a 43-stop organ between 1762 and 1765. In 1885, a Friedrich Ladegast organ with 62 speaking stops was placed on the west gallery in an elaborate Gothic Revival case made by Gustav Kuntzsch’s ecclesiastical-art establishment.
In 1912, the Dresden firm Gebr. Jehmlich installed an organ with 82 speaking stops, which was destroyed in 1945. A used instrument from Villa Bahner in Oberlungwitz was installed in 1950. It was replaced in 2005 by a nine-stop organ made by Rühle Orgelbau. Originally intended for the choir, the Rühle organ was moved to the nave in 2009, while a larger main organ for the nave and west gallery is planned.
Paintings and surviving medieval works
A monumental high altar was installed around 1500, and a Late Gothic Holy Sepulchre was made between about 1490 and 1525. The Holy Sepulchre is now held by the Schlossberg Museum in Chemnitz. St. Jakobi preserves paintings by Adam Friedrich Oeser, including the Resurrection of Christ and a depiction of two angels with the elements of the Eucharist. Oeser’s paintings of Moses and Christ formerly decorated confessionals in the choir.
A sixteenth-century crucifix was placed above the altar in 2009 after arriving at the church following the Second World War. Double-sided paintings of saints by an unknown artist, dating from around 1500, hang on the sacristy wall. Together with the reconstructed medieval architecture, these furnishings and artworks preserve successive layers of the church’s religious and artistic history.
