The Catholic Holy Cross Church (german: Katholische Heilig-Kreuz-Kirche) is a

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...

parish church in the southern German city of

Augsburg Augsburg (; bar , Augschburg , links=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian_German , label=Swabian German, , ) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the ' ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

. While its history dates back to 1143 when a hospice with a chapel was constructed on the site, the present church in the

Gothic style Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

was built by Provost Vitus Fackler in 1508. After bombing damage in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, rebuilding work was completed in 1949."Heilig-Kreuz-Kirche, Augsburg"
Schwabenmedia.de. Retrieved 10 April 2013. Right next to this church is the Evangelical Holy Cross Church, Augsburg.

History

The site of the Holy Cross Hospice was located outside the town walls of Augsburg. The name stems from an ancient cross relic which can still be seen in the Diocesan Museum. In the late 12th century, the Bishop of Augsburg put the hospice into the care of the

Augustinian Canons Regular Canons regular are priests who live in community under a rule ( and canon in greek) and are generally organised into religious orders, differing from both secular canons and other forms of religious life, such as clerics regular, designated by a ...

. At the beginning of the 13th century, a small wooden church for the parishioners and a simple convent were built."Die Geschichte der Wallfahrtskirche Heilig Kreuz"
Dominikaner Augsburg. Retrieved 10 April 2013. A miracle was said to have occurred in 1194 when a woman took a piece of the sacramental communion bread back home. The longer she kept it, the more it appeared to be transformed into a mysterious blood-red object. Five years later, she finally confessed to her misdemeanor and returned the sacrement to the priest. A miracle was declared, making the church a popular destination for pilgrimages right up to the 20th century. A wooden church tower was built around 1200 on graves dating from Roman times but it burnt to the ground in 1314. As a result, a stone church in the Romanesque style together with a new convent was built the following year. In 1502, unhappy with the Romanesque building, Provost Vitus Fackler had a large Gothic hall church built, probably charging Burkhart Engelberg with its design. After it was completed in 1508, a higher tower and a copper roof were added (1514–1517). In 1627, Provost Johannes Schall provided the church with a new altar, seats and a pulpit. A full transformation to the

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

style was completed by Johann Jakob Herkommer under the leadership of Provost Augustin von Imhoff in 1716. After serious bomb damage in February 1944 which left little more than the outer walls and the organ loft, painstaking rebuilding work was completed in 1949. Repairs to the adjacent convent building were completed in 1958.

References

{{Authority control Gothic hall churches in Germany Roman Catholic churches in Bavaria Churches in Augsburg Roman Catholic churches completed in 1508 Roman Catholic churches completed in 1949 16th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in Germany Roman Catholic churches completed in 1517 Towers completed in the 16th century 1140s establishments in the Holy Roman Empire 1143 establishments in Europe