St. Peter's Church, Copenhagen
Encyclopedia
St. Peter's Church is the parish church of the German-speaking community in Copenhagen
, Denmark
. Built as a single-nave church in the mid-15th century, it is the oldest building in central
Copenhagen. It is also notable for its extensive complex of sepulchral chapels.
one out of four Catholic parish churches in Copenhagen. It is first mentioned in 1304 but was most likely founded in the 12th century.The first church burnt down in 1380 but was rebuilt shortly thereafter. After the Reformation the church building was for a while used as a canon and bell foundry
.
Frederick II
presented St. Peter's Church to his German-speaking subjects in 1585. The building was renovated by Hans van Steenwinckel the Elder
who also added a gablet upper floor to the uncompleted tower, which was however replaced by a spire in the 17th century. The church became a centre for Copenhagen's political, economic, cultural and military elite, which, like the Royal Court, relied on German for everyday use.
The rapidly growing congregation made it necessary to expand the church in several stages. Christian IV
added a northern transept
in 1631 and a southern transept in 1634. Just 60 years later, Christian V
extended the north transept with a further three severies. The distinctive sepulchral chapels arose between 1648 and 1740.
St. Peter's Church was severely damaged in the Copenhagen Fire of 1728
. The interior was lost to the flames but the outer walls were left intact and the church could fairly easily be rebuilt by Johan Cornelius Krieger
. The church was first given a short lantern spire which was replaced by the current copper-clad spire in 1756-57. The spire survived the British bombardement during the Battle of Copenhagen
in 1807.
With the increasing tensions between Denmark and Germany in the middle of the 18th century, culminating in the First Schleswig War from 1848–50, the church lost its special position and therefore members, prestige and financial support.
As time passed, it became an impossible task for the congregation to maintain the large building complex, and in 1994 the state took over the church back into its care. It was transferred to the Palaces and Properties Agency, which in the late 90s carried out extensive restoration and partial restructuring under the direction of architect and professor Hans Munk Hansen.
layout which characterizes it today. Most of the church, including the nave, the choir and the lower part of the tower, dates back to the middle of the 15th century. The main entrance is located in the southern transept and is marked by a richly carved Baroque
portal from 1731, carved by the sculptor Diderik Gercken. The spire from 1756-57 is built in the Rococo style to the design of carpenter
completed a three wing chapel towards Larslejstræde. The complex contains numerous tombs and epitaph
s of important German families in Denmark. Beneath the tombs contain the sarcofages of the most destinguished family members while other chests are placed in three to four layers in underground crypts.
and Andreas Weidenhaupt. Amidst the chapels lies the idylic 'herb garden' . The interents include:
In the graveyeard outisde:
congregation wwith 900 membersm part of the Danish National Church. The congregation arranges guided tours, concerts and other cultural events in the historic building. Together with the St. Peter's School and the St. Peter's Cultural Center , both of which are located on the church's premises, it forms a centre for German culture in Copenhagen.
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...
, Denmark
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
. Built as a single-nave church in the mid-15th century, it is the oldest building in central
Indre By
Indre By , also known as Copenhagen Center or K or Downtown Copenhagen or City, is one of the 15 administrative, statistical, and tax city districts comprising the municipality of Copenhagen, Denmark...
Copenhagen. It is also notable for its extensive complex of sepulchral chapels.
History
St. Peter's Church was in the Middle AgesMiddle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
one out of four Catholic parish churches in Copenhagen. It is first mentioned in 1304 but was most likely founded in the 12th century.The first church burnt down in 1380 but was rebuilt shortly thereafter. After the Reformation the church building was for a while used as a canon and bell foundry
Foundry
A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal in a mold, and removing the mold material or casting after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals processed are aluminum and cast iron...
.
Frederick II
Frederick II of Denmark
Frederick II was King of Denmark and Norway and duke of Schleswig from 1559 until his death.-King of Denmark:Frederick II was the son of King Christian III of Denmark and Norway and Dorothea of Saxe-Lauenburg. Frederick II stands as the typical renaissance ruler of Denmark. Unlike his father, he...
presented St. Peter's Church to his German-speaking subjects in 1585. The building was renovated by Hans van Steenwinckel the Elder
Hans van Steenwinckel the Elder
Hans van Steenwinckel the Elder was a Flemish-Danish architect and sculptor. He worked on a large number of the most important Danish buildings of his time, although the exact scope of his contributions in many cases remains uncertain and much have been demolished or redesigned later...
who also added a gablet upper floor to the uncompleted tower, which was however replaced by a spire in the 17th century. The church became a centre for Copenhagen's political, economic, cultural and military elite, which, like the Royal Court, relied on German for everyday use.
The rapidly growing congregation made it necessary to expand the church in several stages. Christian IV
Christian IV of Denmark
Christian IV was the king of Denmark-Norway from 1588 until his death. With a reign of more than 59 years, he is the longest-reigning monarch of Denmark, and he is frequently remembered as one of the most popular, ambitious and proactive Danish kings, having initiated many reforms and projects...
added a northern transept
Transept
For the periodical go to The Transept.A transept is a transverse section, of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In Christian churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform building in Romanesque and Gothic Christian church architecture...
in 1631 and a southern transept in 1634. Just 60 years later, Christian V
Christian V of Denmark
Christian V , was king of Denmark and Norway from 1670 to 1699, the son of Frederick III of Denmark and Sophie Amalie of Brunswick-Lüneburg...
extended the north transept with a further three severies. The distinctive sepulchral chapels arose between 1648 and 1740.
St. Peter's Church was severely damaged in the Copenhagen Fire of 1728
Copenhagen Fire of 1728
The Copenhagen Fire of 1728 was the largest fire in the history of Copenhagen, Denmark. It began on the evening of October 20, 1728, and continued to burn until the morning of October 23. It destroyed approximately 28% of the city , left 20% of the population homeless, and the reconstruction lasted...
. The interior was lost to the flames but the outer walls were left intact and the church could fairly easily be rebuilt by Johan Cornelius Krieger
Johan Cornelius Krieger
Johan Cornelius Krieger was a Danish architect and landscape architect, who from the 1720s served as both the country's chief architect, and head of the royal gardens....
. The church was first given a short lantern spire which was replaced by the current copper-clad spire in 1756-57. The spire survived the British bombardement during the Battle of Copenhagen
Battle of Copenhagen (1807)
The Second Battle of Copenhagen was a British preemptive attack on Copenhagen, targeting the civilian population in order to seize the Dano-Norwegian fleet and in turn originate the term to Copenhagenize.-Background:Despite the defeat and loss of many ships in the first Battle of Copenhagen in...
in 1807.
With the increasing tensions between Denmark and Germany in the middle of the 18th century, culminating in the First Schleswig War from 1848–50, the church lost its special position and therefore members, prestige and financial support.
As time passed, it became an impossible task for the congregation to maintain the large building complex, and in 1994 the state took over the church back into its care. It was transferred to the Palaces and Properties Agency, which in the late 90s carried out extensive restoration and partial restructuring under the direction of architect and professor Hans Munk Hansen.
Architecture
St. Peter's Church was originally built as a single-nave church but with Christian IV's addition of the northern and southern transepts, it received the cruciformCruciform
Cruciform means having the shape of a cross or Christian cross.- Cruciform architectural plan :This is a common description of Christian churches. In Early Christian, Byzantine and other Eastern Orthodox forms of church architecture this is more likely to mean a tetraconch plan, a Greek cross,...
layout which characterizes it today. Most of the church, including the nave, the choir and the lower part of the tower, dates back to the middle of the 15th century. The main entrance is located in the southern transept and is marked by a richly carved Baroque
Baroque architecture
Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...
portal from 1731, carved by the sculptor Diderik Gercken. The spire from 1756-57 is built in the Rococo style to the design of carpenter
Sepulchral chapels
The church has an extensive complex of sepulchral chapels which was commenced in 1643 and not completed until 1681-83 when Hans van Steenwinckel the YoungestHans van Steenwinckel the Youngest
Hans van Steenwinckel the Youngest was a Danish architect and sculptor, son of Hans van Steenwinckel the Younger and grandson of Hans van Steenwinckel the Elder. Following in the footsteps of his farther and grand farther, be became a Royal Building Master in 1669...
completed a three wing chapel towards Larslejstræde. The complex contains numerous tombs and epitaph
Epitaph
An epitaph is a short text honoring a deceased person, strictly speaking that is inscribed on their tombstone or plaque, but also used figuratively. Some are specified by the dead person beforehand, others chosen by those responsible for the burial...
s of important German families in Denmark. Beneath the tombs contain the sarcofages of the most destinguished family members while other chests are placed in three to four layers in underground crypts.
Internents
Many of the chapels are made by Johannes WiedeweltJohannes Wiedewelt
Johannes Wiedewelt , Danish neoclassical sculptor, was born in Copenhagen to royal sculptor to the Danish Court, Just Wiedewelt, and his wife Birgitte Lauridsdatter...
and Andreas Weidenhaupt. Amidst the chapels lies the idylic 'herb garden' . The interents include:
- Johan Boye Junge, builder
- Johann Friedrich StruenseeJohann Friedrich StruenseeCount Johann Friedrich Struensee was a German doctor. He became royal physician to the mentally ill King Christian VII of Denmark and a minister in the Danish government. He rose in power to a position of “de facto” regent of the country, where he tried to carry out widespread reforms...
- Carl Adolph von Plessen
- Ernst Heinrich von SchimmelmannErnst Heinrich von SchimmelmannErnst Heinrich von Schimmelmann was a German-Danish politician, businessman and patron of the arts. His father was Heinrich Carl von Schimmelmann.-Early life and career:Ernst von Schimmelmann was born in Dresden...
- Charlotte SchimmelmannCharlotte SchimmelmannMagdalene Charlotte Hedevig Schimmelmann was a Danish noble woman and salonist.-Biography:Magdalene Charlotte Schubart was born at Fossum in Skien, Norway to Lieutenant Carl Rudolph Schubart and Inger Løvenskiold . On the 25th May 1782, she married the statesman Count Ernst Heinrich won Schimmelan...
- Johan Sigismund Schulin
- Just Wiedewelt
In the graveyeard outisde:
- Ernst Henrich BerlingErnst Henrich BerlingErnst Henrich Berling was a German-Danish book printer and publisher. From 1749 he published Danske Post Tidender, which would later become Berlingske Tidende.-Biography:...
- Nicolai EigtvedNicolai EigtvedNicolai Eigtved, also known as Niels Eigtved, , Danish architect, introduced and was the leading proponent of the French rococo style in Danish architecture during the 1730s-1740s. He designed and built some of the most prominent buildings of his time, a number of which still stand to this day...
- Friederike BrunFriederike BrunFriederike Brun, née Münther , was a Danish author and salonist.She was married to the affluent merchant Constantin Brun and during the Danish Golden Age of the first half of the 19th century she arranged literary salons at Sophienholm, their summer retreat north of Copenhagen.-Early...
, poet and salonist
St. Peter's Church today
The church is today owned by the Danish Palaces and Properties Agency but on a day-to-day basis the church is still used actively by the German-speaking Evangelical-LutheranLutheranism
Lutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the theology of Martin Luther, a German reformer. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
congregation wwith 900 membersm part of the Danish National Church. The congregation arranges guided tours, concerts and other cultural events in the historic building. Together with the St. Peter's School and the St. Peter's Cultural Center , both of which are located on the church's premises, it forms a centre for German culture in Copenhagen.
See also
- Christian's ChurchChristian's Church, CopenhagenChristian's Church is a magnificent Rococo church in the Christianshavn district of Copenhagen, Denmark. Designed by Nicolai Eigtved, it was built 1754–59....