Church of the Holy Spirit: A Gothic Danish Church in Flensburg
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 4.5
- Popularity
- Low
- Country
- Germany
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval, Early Modern, Modern
- Civilizations
- Danish
- Site type
- Religious
- Remains
- Church
On this page17 sections
History
The Church of the Holy Spirit is a Gothic church in Flensburg, Germany, built in 1386 as part of the Hospital of the Holy Spirit. Located on Große Straße in the Old Town and belonging to the parish of St. Mary, it is the principal church of the Danish Church in Southern Schleswig in Flensburg and the main church of the city’s five Danish congregations.
The Hospital of the Holy Spirit
The church formed part of a hospital founded around 1300 to care for sick and elderly people. City clergy managed the institution with the participation of Flensburg’s citizens, whose endowments supplied much of its material foundation. From 1325, part of the hospital’s tax burden was remitted, while its holdings included extensive property in the town and surrounding countryside. The hospital also exercised lower jurisdiction over people who had entered its dependence through donations.
Reformation and Danish worship
The Reformation, the sixteenth-century movement that reshaped Western Christianity and established Lutheran churches across northern Europe, changed the hospital’s administration. The Hospital of the Holy Spirit was merged with the city’s other ecclesiastical foundations, and its activities were concentrated in the former Franciscan convent of St. Catherine on the southern edge of Flensburg.
The church at the former hospital site was too large for the portion of the new foundation that remained there. It consequently faced decay and possible demolition until it was attached as a filial church to St. Mary’s. In 1588, it was assigned to Danish-language worship. This arrangement developed from the language situation created by the Reformation, when German became the city’s church language even though not all residents understood it. The church’s Danish religious identity has continued through its services and institutional affiliation.
Changes in congregational use
In 1895, the parish of Jürgensby separated from Adelby, and its congregation used the Church of the Holy Spirit until St. Jürgen’s Church was completed. After the Second Schleswig War, Flensburg’s newly established Catholic congregation was also initially allowed to worship in the church. It later moved to a chapel above the building, which was replaced around 1900 by the Catholic Church of St. Mary of the Sorrows.
In May 1945, German troops occupied St. Mary’s Church as an emergency quarter. From 8 May, German-language services were therefore held in the Church of the Holy Spirit. A restoration campaign followed in 1971–1973, and a new organ was installed in 1975. The church was transferred to the Danish Church in Southern Schleswig in 1997.
Remains
The Church of the Holy Spirit survives as a two-aisled Gothic hall church, with a unified interior formed by vaulted spaces. The southern main aisle is almost twice as wide as the lower northern side aisle, and both aisles are vaulted. Medieval wall and ceiling paintings, later furnishings, ship models, an organ, and a modern stained-glass installation occupy the interior.
Medieval frescoes
Medieval lime frescoes were rediscovered in 1926 during renovation on the eastern clerestory wall between the two aisles. They had been covered by more than ten layers of plaster. Restoration in 1927 included substantial additions. The painter is unknown, although the clothing of the figures has led to the suggestion that the artist came from the region of Bohemia or Burgundy.
Further frescoes survive in three vault bays on the northern side of the main aisle, together with fragments of other paintings in the vault caps. The second bay, in front of the altar, shows the Last Judgment. Christ sits on a rainbow within a mandorla, an almond-shaped aureole, while Mary and John the Baptist approach him in an appeal for mercy. His red robe stands against a green background, and a sword and lily emerge from his mouth as signs of punishment and grace.
The third bay contains a Jesse Tree, a Christian image tracing Jesus’s genealogy through Jesse, the father of King David. Jesse lies beneath the tree, whose four branches carry busts of Christ’s ancestors. The crucified Christ hangs from its trunk between Mary and John, while a pelican above represents Christ’s self-sacrifice. The fourth bay, partly hidden by the western gallery, depicts the martyrdom of Saint Erasmus, one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, a group of saints invoked in medieval Christianity for protection against dangers and illnesses.
Altar and baptismal font
Medieval baptismal font
The oldest furnishing in the church is a medieval baptismal font made of granite. Its survival provides a physical link with the building’s medieval religious use.
Baroque altar
The Baroque altar was donated by the Rivesell couple and made by J. Zimmer in 1719. Its predella, the lower section of an altarpiece, shows the Last Supper. Above it, the central scene depicts Christ’s Resurrection within a carved acanthus frame, an ornament of stylized leaves derived from the acanthus plant. Putti and personifications of virtues surround the central image. Courage and hope appear among the central figures, while love and faith flank the Yahweh sun on the broken segmental pediment. A dove representing the Holy Spirit appears to emerge from an opening beneath them.
Ship models
Tordenskjold
The larger ship model, Tordenskjold, was transferred to the church in 1863. It represents a ship of the line, a heavily armed sailing warship intended to fight in a battle line, and is about 1.70 metres long. The fully rigged vessel has three masts. Its underwater hull is painted green, while the upper sides are black with a white waterline and gun ports. Eight gun ports appear on each side.
The model was made by I. E. R. Praem, a Flensburg customs assistant, and donated by the association Danske Vaabenbrødre. The warship’s name refers to Peter Wessel, a Norwegian-Danish naval officer who lived from 1690 to 1720 and died in a duel. After displaying courage and skill in several naval battles against the Swedish fleet, he received a noble title and the name Tordenskiold in 1716.
Daria
The smaller Daria model was donated in 1859 and stands in a wall niche. It represents a simply executed three-masted, three-deck ship. The two models are a ship of the line and a war frigate respectively, although they have often, inaccurately, been called votive ships since the beginning of the twentieth century.
Pulpits and organ
Renaissance pulpit
A Renaissance pulpit from the workshop of Heinrich Ringering was made for the Church of the Holy Spirit after money had been collected for it in 1602. Ringering was a Flensburg master carpenter and woodcarver active around the turn of the seventeenth century. The pulpit, created in the High Renaissance style, remained in the church for more than three centuries before being moved to the newly built St. Jürgen’s Church at the beginning of the twentieth century.
Present pulpit
The present pulpit was donated by the Danish congregation in Chicago in 1927. Set against the west wall, it has a basket divided into five fields by pilasters. Gilded acanthus ornament fills the fields within profiled wooden mouldings, while a Danish biblical verse appears above and below them in gold lettering on a dark background.
Organ
Since 1975, the church has contained an organ made by Peter Bruhn & Søn. Its 26 stops, each an individual set of pipes with a particular tone colour, are distributed across three manuals and a pedal. The instrument has mechanical tracker action and slider chests. The manuals are played by the hands, while the pedal is operated by the feet.
Modern stained glass and sculpture
In 2013, Bjørn Nørgaard’s installation Pinseporten, or “Pentecost Gate,” was placed in the northern wall. It consists of three stained-glass windows showing the Annunciation to Mary, the baptism of Jesus, and Christ’s appearance to Thomas. A bronze sculpture accompanies the windows. Its church-facing side represents the Tower of Babel, while a mirror behind the sculpture incorporates the viewer into the representation of the miracle of Pentecost.
