St. Blasii: A Medieval Evangelical Lutheran Parish Church in Nordhausen
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- German, Holy Roman Empire
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page12 sections
History
St. Blasii is an Evangelical Lutheran city parish church in Nordhausen, Germany, whose present nave was built between 1487 and 1490 in the late medieval period while its earlier western towers were retained. It is one of three medieval churches in Nordhausen’s historic center, together with the cathedral and the former St. Nicholas Church, and belongs to the Evangelical Church in Central Germany.
Medieval foundation and rebuilding
A predecessor church was erected around 1220 in connection with the development of the Hagen, a new district north of Nordhausen. A document from 1234 links the project with Henry VII, the medieval German king and emperor-elect, who had been commissioned by his father, the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II, to establish the district together with a church. The new church was placed under the authority of the cathedral chapter. The lower parts of the present towers are believed to preserve remains of this predecessor.
Between 1487 and 1490, the medieval nave was replaced, but the late Romanesque to early Gothic western towers were retained. The date 1489 appears on a keystone in the choir vault, providing a marker for the late medieval rebuilding. Before the Reformation, St. Blasii supported eight vicarages, endowed ecclesiastical benefices that maintained clerical offices.
Reformation and parish life
Johann Spangenberg became St. Blasii’s first Protestant preacher in 1524, reportedly following the recommendation of Martin Luther, the theologian and reformer whose teachings initiated the Protestant Reformation. Spangenberg served the church until 1546. He was also known beyond the congregation as a teacher at the local school and as a writer of devotional works. Andreas Poach held the pastorate for a short period after him.
The church remained associated with leading supporters of the Reformation in Nordhausen. Michael Meyenburg, the town’s mayor and an advocate of the movement, was buried at St. Blasii in 1555. His father-in-law Hans Reinicke, a companion and fellow supporter of Luther, had been buried there in 1538. Two bronze plaques on the south facade commemorate Spangenberg, Reinicke, and Meyenburg.
Christian Demelius served as cantor at St. Blasii from 1669 to 1711. His sons later continued the cantor’s and organist’s offices at the church, extending a musical association across generations.
Fires, lightning, and structural repairs
St. Blasii survived Nordhausen’s town fire of 1612 without damage. Lightning struck the north tower on 24 April 1634 and burned its tower roof. The replacement roof did not restore the former pointed helmet, leaving the two towers different in height. In 1687, a buttress was added to the west side to help secure the towers, and stone from the ruins of Walkenried Church was reused in the work.
The church also survived the town fire of 21 August 1712, although the vicarage burned completely. Its later structural history was shaped by the unstable gypsum-karst ground beneath Nordhausen. The south tower became conspicuously inclined toward the north, and concern about the stability of the towers and roof eventually led to a major restoration.
War damage and restoration
During the air raid on Nordhausen on 4 April 1945, St. Blasii suffered major damage to its roofs and masonry, especially in the eastern parts. Its Cranach paintings had been removed for safekeeping and stored in a brewery cellar, but they were destroyed there by fire. The baroque high altar was also lost. Roof repairs, masonry restoration, and renewal of the interior were completed by 1949.
The church underwent another major restoration because of the danger of collapse in the towers and roof, a project completed in 2004. The interior was renovated in 2014 and 2015. St. Blasii is protected as a cultural monument in Thuringia.
Organ and bells
The organ has been repeatedly rebuilt and repaired. A three-manual instrument was removed in 1618, and a replacement was completed in 1627, financed largely through a donation from Nicol. Helbig of Ilefeld. Its bellows were repaired in 1697 and again between 1698 and 1699 by Hans Andreas Weber, who also cleaned the organ in 1706. Further repairs followed in 1735 and 1741.
After the instrument had deteriorated, a contract for a new organ was concluded with Heinrich Deppe of Nordhausen on 9 November 1815. The town magistrate approved a house collection to help finance it on 10 February 1817. Julius Strobel repaired the organ in 1872, and Ernst Röver installed a new pneumatic organ in 1911. The instrument was rebuilt and enlarged by one manual in 1929.
The organ survived the 1945 air raid but was severely damaged on 1 June 1945 by a returning soldier experiencing religious delusion. It was made provisionally playable afterward. Until 1991, a small positive organ, a compact instrument, provided accompaniment for the congregation. In 1991, the Schuster company of Zittau built a new three-manual mechanical organ, with a case designed by Fritz Schuster.
The present peal consists of five bells. The Joedicke bell was donated in 1969 by the Joedicke siblings to replace a bell melted down during the Second World War. That earlier bell had itself replaced one melted down in 1917. A new bell frame was built for the Joedicke bell in 2007, and it was formally rung in on 6 January 2008.
A new hour bell was cast directly in front of the church on 24 September 2022 by Christoph Schmitt of Brockscheid. It was consecrated on Reformation Day, 31 October 2022, after being hung in the tower, completing the present five-bell peal.
Remains
St. Blasii is organized around a two-bay, three-aisled nave and a single-aisled choir ending in several straight-sided angles. The nave measures 27.2 metres in length and 26.2 metres across, giving the building the character of a cross-shaped church. A south gable projects outward from the main wall, while a cross arm is inserted on the north side. Cross-ribbed masonry vaults, supported by intersecting ribs, cover both the nave and choir.
Towers and medieval structure
The western towers are octagonal and form major elements of the church’s surviving medieval structure. Their lower parts are associated with the predecessor church of around 1220, while the towers themselves preserve late Romanesque to early Gothic features. The north tower’s roof burned after the lightning strike of 1634 and was replaced in a different form, so the towers now differ in height. The west-side buttress added in 1687 incorporates stone reused from Walkenried Church.
The building stands on gypsum-karst ground, terrain formed by the dissolution of gypsum bedrock. This ground condition helps explain the structural concern that led to the restoration completed in 2004. The south tower remains noticeably inclined toward the north.
Choir windows and altar area
Three stained-glass windows made in 1949 by the Ferdinand Müller workshop in Quedlinburg fill the choir. Martin Domke supplied their designs after the earlier windows were destroyed in 1945. Together, the windows present scenes from the Christmas story, Christ’s Passion, and the Resurrection.
The left window follows the Christmas narrative. It includes the Annunciation, the ox, donkey, and sheep, Mary with the infant Jesus and Joseph, the proclamation of the Christmas message, shepherds and kings kneeling before the child, and the Flight into Egypt. The right window presents Christ’s suffering from bottom to top, beginning with the Last Supper and the sleeping disciples in Gethsemane. It continues with Christ’s arrest and Judas’s kiss, his mockery by the crowd, and his collapse beneath the cross while Mary mourns and soldiers wield scourges.
The central Resurrection window includes the darkening of the sun and moon at Christ’s death, bread and wine as symbols of forgiveness, the risen Christ with the disciples at Emmaus, the Ascension, the Trinity, and the dove above it. The baroque high altar destroyed in 1945 was replaced by a simple altar table. The altar cross is made of a tin alloy and is approximately one hundred years old. It was stolen before 16 April 2016 together with the altar cross from St. Nicholas Church, and its whereabouts remain unknown.
Pulpit and baptismal font
The Renaissance pulpit dates from 1592 and was donated by Nordhausen mayor Cyriakus Ernst. Its supporting figure probably represents Abraham, although Moses or an unnamed warrior have also been proposed. Two panels bearing the Ten Commandments were once attached to the figure. They were installed in 1945 and later removed.
Reliefs on the pulpit balustrade show the Resurrection, Crucifixion, Baptism, Adam and Eve in Paradise, Ascension, and the Christmas story. Pilasters separating the scenes carry figures of the four Evangelists, Moses, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. The baptismal font was donated by Ottilie Ernst in 1591 and made by Lorentz Fronhausen, a Nordhausen woodcarver and cabinetmaker.
Epitaphs and memorial stones
Several memorials connect the interior with Nordhausen’s civic and religious history. An epitaph, a commemorative monument for the dead, was painted for Mayor Michael Meyenburg by Lucas Cranach the Younger in 1558. It was not recovered after the 1945 air raids and was probably destroyed by fire. A copy made in 1937 hangs on the north side of the choir. It depicts the Raising of Lazarus, with members of the Meyenburg family and a group of Reformers in the foreground.
A second epitaph for Meyenburg’s first wife, titled Ecce Homo, was painted by Lucas Cranach the Elder and has been missing since 1945. The Cranach family were prominent German Renaissance artists whose religious paintings and portraits were closely connected with the Reformation. A third epitaph, dated 1585, honors Cyriax or Cyriacus Ernst, legal adviser and chancellor to the Counts of Hohnstein. It is mounted on the west wall of the south gallery beside the organ. He may have been the father of the pulpit donor.
The church originally contained 101 gravestones. Five survive and are displayed against the wall beneath the north gallery. They commemorate Johann Heinrich Kindervater, who lived from 1675 to 1726; Caspar Arens, mayor of Nordhausen from 1687 to 1704; Johannes Titius, chancellor of the Counts of Stolberg in Nordhausen, licentiate, and council syndic; Johann Christoph Ibe, mayor from 1705 to 1709; and Johannes Jacob Kiesewetter, a deacon who lived from 1681 to 1713.
The Kindervater memorial records his marriage to Sophia Elisabeth Happe and names their children Elisabeth, Johann Samuel, Johann Philipp, Margarete Gertrude, Johann Christoph, Johanna Elisabeth, and Catharina Sophie. The Titius memorial records his marriages to Euphrosine Wilde and Catharina Maria Offney, as well as his service as licentiate in 1649 and 1651 and council syndic in 1656, 1658, and 1661. The Kiesewetter memorial records his marriage to Johanna Christine Rohrmann.
Organ and bell collection
The 1991 organ has three manuals, keyboards played by the hands, and mechanical action. Its listed couplers are II/I, III/I, I/P, II/P, and III/P. A swell box, a mechanism for controlling volume, serves the chest division. The earlier instruments preserve a long sequence of technical changes. The 1627 organ had three manuals, with Principal and Mixture stops in the first, Gedackt, Octave, Quint, Superoctave, and Cymbal in the second, and a smaller division positioned behind the organist in the third. The 1929 rebuilding added a manual and included several manual and pedal couplers, a swell box for the chest division, and a roller.
The bells preserve different periods of the church’s history. The Joedicke bell bears an inscription referring to Jesus Christ and to Michael Meyenburg and Johannes Spangenberg as fathers of the Reformation in Nordhausen. It also identifies the 1969 donors.
A bell cast between 1320 and 1350 has a diameter of 1.28 metres and weighs 1,200 kilograms. It hangs in an 1843 bell frame and carries a Latin inscription describing its functions. The inscription associates the bell with announcing the Sabbath, lamenting funerals, breaking harmful forces such as lightning, rousing the sluggish, calming the violent, and scattering winds.
A larger bell cast in 1488 measures 1.58 metres in diameter and weighs 1,900 kilograms. It hangs in a bell frame erected in 1726. Its engraved decoration includes the Crucifixion with John and Mary, Saint Andrew, Saint Blaise giving to a cripple, and Saint Martin as a bishop.
A fourth bell was cast in 1426 and has a diameter of 70 centimetres. Its inscription invokes God, Mary, and Saint Blaise, and it bears a small Pieta medallion. Because of structural problems in the bell frame and the lack of another hour bell, it served for many years as the clock-striking bell. In 2022, it was moved into a protected bell frame.
The fifth bell was cast in 2022 in a shortened-rib profile. It weighs 133 kilograms and measures 66 centimetres in diameter. Its inscription, “My time is in your hands,” comes from Psalm 31. The bell also commemorates Barbara Losche and Ute Drechsler, who donated it in memory of a sister and, respectively, a husband and son.
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