St. James' Church (german: Hauptkirche St. Jacobi) is one of the five principal churches (''Hauptkirchen'') of Hamburg. In 1529, it became a
Lutheran church. It is located directly in the city centre, has a 125 m tall tower and features a famous organ by
Arp Schnitger
Arp Schnitger (2 July 164828 July 1719 (buried)) was an influential Northern German organ builder. Considered the most paramount manufacturer of his time, Schnitger built or rebuilt over 150 organs. He was primarily active in Northern Europe, es ...
from 1693. It is dedicated to
St James the Greater
James the Great, also known as James, son of Zebedee, Saint James the Great, Saint James the Greater, Saint James the Elder, or Saint Jacob (Aramaic ܝܥܩܘܒ ܒܪ ܙܒܕܝ, Arabic يعقوب, Hebrew בן זבדי , '' Yaʿăqōḇ'', Latin '' ...
and often incorrectly referred to in English as ''St Jacob's''.
History
The history of the church goes back to 1255 when St. James' was a small Roman Catholic chapel located outside the Hamburg
city walls. After these were extended in 1260, it became part of the Hamburg city territory. It is now in the heart of the city, hidden behind one of the main shopping streets (''Mönckebergstraße'').
Between 1350 and 1400, the chapel was replaced by a
hall church with three
naves, similar to
St. Peter's. Around one hundred years later, a fourth nave was added to the south side of the structure. The
sacristy
A sacristy, also known as a vestry or preparation room, is a room in Christian churches for the keeping of vestments (such as the alb and chasuble) and other church furnishings, sacred vessels, and parish records.
The sacristy is usually located ...
in the northeast also comes from this time (1438) and is today Hamburg's only example of secular
gothic
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 ...
architecture.
From 1806 to 1813, when Hamburg was occupied by Napoleonic troops, the church was used mainly as stables.
The second tower, erected in 1826/27 after the previous one had become dilapidated, was destroyed in 1944, along with the rest of the church building, by bombing during
World War II. Only the historic interior furnishings were saved. It was not until 1963 that St. James' re-emerged, built to the medieval design, albeit with a modern
spire.
Notable features
The building sits a few metres east of the
10th meridian east
The meridian 10° east of Prime Meridian, Greenwich is a line of longitude that extends from the North Pole across the Arctic Ocean, Europe, Africa, the Atlantic Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and Antarctica to the South Pole.
The 10th meridian eas ...
longitude, which runs through the city centre.
The famous
Arp Schnitger organ of 1693 in the west gallery, with 60 registers and around 4,000 pipes, is the largest
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 ...
organ in Northern Europe. From 1989 to 1993, the organ was completely restored, and since its rededication at
Easter 1993 it can be heard every Sunday during services.
The 34 pictures in the organ gallery are the works of Otto
Wagenfeldt and Joachim Lundt.
They were created to portray the Bible in illustrations which everyone could appreciate and understand.
St. James' has three medieval altars: the Holy Trinity Altar in the Main Choir (c. 1518, the St. Peter Altar in the first south nave (1508), and the St. Luke Altar in the second south nave (1500) that originally comes from the
Hamburg Cathedral
Saint Mary's Cathedral in Hamburg (german: link=no, Sankt Mariendom, also ''Mariendom'', or simply ''Dom'' or ''Domkirche'', or ''Hamburger Dom'') was the cathedral of the ancient Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hamburg (not to be confused with ...
. The St. Luke Altar was built by the former Guild of St. Luke. All three were built originally to serve as Roman Catholic altars.
Also worthy of notice is the Ministers' Room, which originally served as a library. Since 1543, it has been the collection room of the Cathedral ministers, and was remodelled in 1710. The ceiling murals, with their civic virtues, show the importance of maintaining parish to the city regiment. They were painted, like the landscape paintings on the wall, by Johann Moritz Riesenberger. Coats of arms on the walls name the pastors, vicars, and jurors who have served the parish since the sixteenth century.
Windows
The stained-glass windows are the work of
Charles Crodel
Charles Crodel (September 16, 1894 – November 11, 1973) was a German painter and stained glass artist.
Life
Crodel was born in Marseille, he studied in 1914 with Richard Riemerschmid, one of the founders of the Deutscher Werkbund, at the M ...
, who also created the windows of
St. Matthew's Church in
Winterhude and those of
St. Mary's Church in
Fuhlsbüttel
is an urban quarter in the north of Hamburg, Germany in the Hamburg-Nord district. It is known as the site of Hamburg's international airport, and as the location of a prison which served as a concentration camp in the Nazi system of repression. ...
.
The windows depict in the main important events in the