Apollinaris Church: A Neo-Gothic Pilgrimage Church in Remagen, Germany
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.7
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Modern
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Modern
- Civilizations
- Kingdom of Prussia
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page14 sections
History
Apollinaris Church is a Roman Catholic pilgrimage church in Remagen, Germany, built in the nineteenth century in the Neo-Gothic style on a hill above the Rhine. The hill, now called Apollinarisberg, was known as Martinsberg in the fifth and sixth centuries, and the church stands on a site identified with a Roman temple. Its history combines early medieval Christian foundations, Benedictine administration, devotion to Saint Apollinaris of Ravenna, and a major nineteenth-century rebuilding.
Early Christian and Benedictine foundations
The date of the first church on the hill is uncertain, but it probably belonged to the ninth century. It was dedicated to Saint Martin, the patron saint of the Franks, and an earlier Frankish chapel may have stood there before the ninth-century building. Benedictines had been established on Apollinarisberg since the early Middle Ages. Around 1110, monks from Michaelsberg Abbey in Siegburg established a provostry at Remagen, a dependent religious house headed by a provost, with support from the local population.
The relics of Saint Apollinaris of Ravenna probably reached the hill in the thirteenth century. Apollinaris was an early Christian bishop and martyr traditionally associated with Ravenna. His presence at Remagen is first recorded in 1295, when an indulgence document granted forty days of indulgence to people attending specified devotions. A pilgrimage to Apollinarisberg is recorded by 1384, and organized pilgrimages continued to develop in later centuries. A journey from St George in Cologne is documented from the early sixteenth century, while pilgrims from Auenheim have travelled to Remagen since 1630.
Secularization and nineteenth-century rebuilding
The Benedictine provostry was dissolved in 1802 during the Napoleonic Wars and the secularization of ecclesiastical institutions and property. Sulpiz and Melchior Boisserée, with the participation of the diplomat Karl Friedrich Count von Reinhard, bought the estate in 1807. They sold it at auction in August 1836 for 24,200 thalers to Baron Franz Egon von Fürstenberg-Stammheim, a German aristocrat and patron of nineteenth-century religious art and architecture who became a count in 1840.
The old church was structurally unsound. Fürstenberg-Stammheim therefore abandoned his plan to install a major cycle of modern religious paintings in the existing building and chose to replace it. The foundation stone of the present church was laid on 22 July 1839, and the building was consecrated on 24 March 1857.
Rudolf Wiegmann proposed a design in the Neo-Romanesque Rundbogenstil, a style based on round-arched forms, but Fürstenberg-Stammheim selected the Neo-Gothic design by Ernst Friedrich Zwirner. In the Catholic Rhineland at that time, Neo-Romanesque architecture was associated with Protestantism, while Neo-Gothic architecture was regarded as a Catholic style. The new church was consequently intended to express Catholic aristocratic identity in the Protestant-ruled Rhineland.
From 1837, Fürstenberg-Stammheim contacted artists associated with Wilhelm von Schadow and commissioned an extensive cycle of religious paintings. Ernst Deger, Andreas Müller, Karl Müller, and Franz Ittenbach worked on the paintings during the summer half of each year for almost ten years. Their work formed part of the church’s deliberate design as a pilgrimage building with broad wall surfaces for frescoes, paintings applied to fresh plaster.
Franciscan administration and twentieth-century changes
From 25 March 1857 until 31 December 2006, the pilgrimage was administered by Franciscans of the Saxon Franciscan Province, known from 1929 as the Cologne Franciscan Province. During the Kulturkampf, the nineteenth-century conflict in the German Empire between the state and the Roman Catholic Church, the Franciscan monastery was dissolved. A small group of friars nevertheless continued pastoral work because of its strong ties with the people of Remagen.
In 1884, the von Fürstenberg-Stammheim family, which owned the church, established a family crypt on the grounds. Franz Egon von Fürstenberg-Stammheim, who had died in 1859, was buried there. During the Second World War, a nearby V2 impact damaged the roofs and glazing of the church and monastery. Repairs were delayed until 1947, allowing moisture to penetrate and cause severe damage to the frescoes. The Franciscans also gave shelter and pastoral assistance to local residents during the war.
In 1972, the monastery buildings occupied by the Franciscans were demolished. A new convent was built immediately north of the church on the site of the former Benedictine provostry. For several years it served as a juniorate for young members of the Cologne Franciscan Province, who lived in Remagen and studied at the University of Bonn.
Restoration and continuing pilgrimage
Extensive renovation began in 1985 under the direction of architect Karl-Josef Ernst. Exterior work was completed in 2005, and further interior restoration began in mid-2005 with support from the German Foundation for Monument Protection and the Apollinariskirche support association. The Franciscans left the monastery and church at the end of 2006. From February 2007, care of the pilgrimage site was assumed by the Community of Crucified and Risen Love, a private association of believers from Maastricht.
Since the Franciscans arrived in 1857, the annual Apollinaris pilgrimage has taken place over two weeks in July and August. At its height, it attracted up to 100,000 pilgrims. During the pilgrimage period from 19 July to 3 August 2014, approximately 12,000 worshippers attended.
Remains
Apollinaris Church occupies the summit of Apollinarisberg, approximately 40 metres above the Rhine. The present building is a Neo-Gothic church designed by Ernst Friedrich Zwirner and painted in the Nazarene style, a nineteenth-century Christian movement inspired by earlier Italian and Northern European religious painting. Its architecture was planned to provide extensive wall surfaces for the large fresco cycle, while the towers and interior fittings combine masonry construction with substantial cast-iron work.
Exterior and metalwork
The two towers carry openwork cast-iron pyramidal spires that rise 45 metres. The Isselburger Hütte foundry of Nering, Bögel and Company in the Lower Rhine region produced the cast-iron balustrades between the towers, the columns supporting the organ gallery, the choir screens, and the railing of the staircase leading to the crypt. These elements form part of the surviving architectural and interior equipment of the nineteenth-century church.
The church’s later conservation has also addressed its exposed tower decoration. Tower crockets, ornamental projections formerly attached to the towers, were removed in 2018 for safety reasons. In July 2024, the approximately two-metre-high pinnacle of the southwest tower was removed from a platform more than 40 metres above ground because it apparently suffered rust damage caused by weathering. The extent and duration of the subsequent repair work were initially uncertain.
Interior and fresco cycle
Inside, the cross-ribbed vault is painted as a blue-and-gold starry sky. A dove representing the Holy Spirit decorates the keystone at the crossing. The fresco cycle contains 69 paintings and approximately 580 figures. Its three principal subjects are the life of Jesus, the life of Mary, and the life of Saint Apollinaris.
Apse and painted decoration
The apse is dominated by Christ as Judge of the World, accompanied by Mary and John the Baptist. Saint Peter and Saint Apollinaris appear below, while the four Evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are positioned on either side. The side altars are associated with the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph. The paintings were made in the Nazarene manner commissioned for the church during the building campaign and were later affected by moisture after wartime damage to the roofs and glazing.
Organ
The organ was built and enlarged by the Simon organ workshop in 1984. It has 21 stops distributed across two manuals and a pedal.
Crypt and archaeological evidence
Crypt and relic
The crypt contains a fourteenth-century sarcophagus holding the principal relic of Saint Apollinaris. During the annual pilgrimage, the saint’s head relic is removed from its shrine and placed in a silver anthropomorphic reliquary, a container shaped as a human head for preserving and displaying a religious relic. It is then presented for veneration in the church.
Burials at the hill
Christian burials dating from the Roman period were discovered at the foot of Apollinarisberg in 1892. The finds add archaeological evidence for the long religious history of the hill, whose church site has also been identified with a Roman temple.
Family crypt and restored fabric
The family crypt established by the von Fürstenberg-Stammheim family in 1884 forms part of the church grounds. It contains the burial of Franz Egon von Fürstenberg-Stammheim, who died in 1859. The church’s roofs, glazing, exterior surfaces, and interior frescoes have undergone repair and restoration following the Second World War damage and the later renovation campaign that began in 1985.
