The 4 oldest Churches in Tallinn (1)

Tallinn Mustamäe College
G2K
Jaana -Kristiina Jõgevest
The Four oldest churches of Tallinn
Report
Supervisor: Ingrid Teigar
Tallinn 2009
The Dome Church
The Danes began fortification of Toompea after the conquest of Tallinn in 1219 and probably also built the first church there . It was presumably a wooden building located at the site of the present cathedral . However , a serious conflict with the Order of the Brothers of the Sword broke out soon as the latter wanted to gain control of the entire Estonia.
The order succeeded in subordinating Tallinn and the whole of North Estonia to its rule in 1227. The monks of the Dominican Order began the construction of a stone church in Toompea in 1229. The first written data on the cathedral date back to 1233, the date of a battle between the order and the pro-papal vassals, who attempted for the last time to turn Tallinn into the centre of the ecclesiastical state, and were defeated. According to the records, the battle had spread to the interior of the church and the bodies of the fallen knights had piled at the altar . The resettling of the Dominican monks from Toompea to downtown was one of the results of the battle.
Having acquired North Estonia again in 1238, King Valdemar of Denmark appointed the Toompea church the cathedral of the Tallinn bishopric, which was formed in 1240, and subordinated to the archdiocese of Lund. The cathedral chapter was established at the cathedral consecrated to St. Mary the Virgin and a school was formed at the church in 1319 at the latest.
The reconstruction of the initally one-nave and relatively modest church into a three-nave one started at the beginning of the 14th century and lasted approximately a hundred years . This period includes another change of power, resulting in Tallinn's subordination to the order one more time. Although the main building of the church dates back to those times , the medieval cathedral was quite different from the present appearance. For example, the tower on the western side of the church was built only in the 18th century, the annexes of the southern side date back to the 16th -18th centuries and those on the northern side to the 15th century.
While the Lutheran reformation movement had prevailed in the churches of downtown Tallinn by 1524 , the Toompea cathedral held Catholic services until 1561, when the Kingdom of Sweden gained control over Tallinn. A library was established at the church in 1641. The copper roof was built thanks to the donation of Queen Christina in 1651.
While nearly the entire Toompea burnt down in a fire in 1433, the fire of 1684 was even more devastating. Only the walls of the church survived – the whole wooden interior and the library burned down and even the arches and carved stone details suffered some damage. King Charles XI held a nationwide collection of donations in Sweden, the nobility of Estonia added their share and this enabled to restore the church in only two years.
T ä h e p õ l d, Kadri . 2005. Giidi käsiraamat: Vanalinn . Tallinn: Ecce Revalia
Legend
Tallinn also had a Don Juan of its own once ; his name was Otto Johann Thuve. He was an outgoing man, loved to eat and drink , and his title of nobility unlocked the hearts of many a woman for him. Before passing away , he repented of his sinful life and asked his kin to bury him next to the main portal of the church. All church-goers would then step over his gravestone and his sins would be redeemed.
P o r g a s s a a r, Kristina; A l j a s, Eva- Grete ; K u u s k e m a a, Jüri. Tallinn: Medieval capital. Tallinn: PhotoTour
I Choir
II Body
III Vestry
IV Chapel of the Freiherr von Güldenbandt
V St. George's chapel
VI The Fersen 's sepulchar chapel
VII Chancery of congregation room
IX southwest chapel

Nicolaes Millich Epitaph of Johan Hastfer 1676

Box of the Mannteufels 1750s

Box of Patkuls 2nd quarter of the 18th cent.

Hermann Berents and Hinrik Martens Golgotha group on the transverse beam of the triumphal arch 1694

Arent Passer Grave slab of Otto von Uexküll 17th century

Arent Passer Perts of Carl Horn's sarcophagus 1601

Arent Passer Grave monument of Pontus de la Gardie 1589 -95

Christian Ackermann Reredos 1694-96

Hans von Aken Epitaph of Olaf Ryning 1594

Arent Passer Grave monument of Casper von Tiesenhausen 1599

Grave monument of Ferdinand von Tiesenhausen 1806

Christian Ackermann Pulpit 1686

Johann Gustav Stockenberg Grave monument of Fabian von Fersen Last decades of the 17th century

Johann Gustav Stockenberg Grave monument of Otto Reinhold von Taube Last decades of the 17th century

Ciacomo Quarenghi Grave monument of Samuel Greigh 1788

Johann Gottfried Exner Grave monument of Adam Johann von Krusestern 1848

Grave slab of the Toompea butcher's guild 1760

Grave slab of the shoemaker's guild 1760
T h e c a t h e d r a l o f S a i n t M a r y t h e V i r g i n i n T a l l i n n . http://www.eelk.ee/~eelk109/english.ht m
The Organ
The Tallinn Dome Church organ, that was built in 1878 by an organ builder of Weissenfeld Friedrich Landegast , rebuilt in 1913/14 by a famous German organ–building enterprise Orgelwerkstatt Wilhelm Sauer and renovated by Christian Scheffler (Frankfurt/ Oder ), has an outstanding position in world organ-history. The organ is a marvelous mixture of both Classicism and late Romanticism. During the intensive renovation in 1998´s seven months the complete cleaning and restoration of the pipes, the creation of the missing registers and pipes, the renewing of the leather parts, the cleaning and renovation of the keyboard , the control of the bellows and the intoning of the organ and the tuning on the original pitch 435 Hz at the temperature 15 ´C was done . As in 1914 the I World War cancelled the full accomplishment of the organ and the following decades hurt the pipery, that is only now on its 85 th anniversary that this instrument sounds on its highest . Tallinn Dome Church's days ´98, that were held from the 28 th to the 31th of October, were dedicated to the Sauerorgel and its importance to the parish's worshipping, the towns concert - and the Europe 's cultural life.
The Dome Church
T h e c a t h e d r a l o f S a i n t M a r y t h e V i r g i n i n T a l l i n n . http://www.eelk.ee/~eelk109/english.ht m
St Olaf's Church
The St. Olaf's Church is dedicated to King Olaf Haraldsson of Norway (995-1030), who adopted Christianity and established it in Norway. The traditional faith was still strong, however; the king was overthrown and killed in battle. He was canonised after death and the cult of his name spread all over Scandinavia.
The earliest written record about the church date back to 1267, when Queen Margarethe of Denmark granted the female Cistercian convent of St. Michael the advowson over the St. Olaf's Church. But major reconstruction followed in the 14th -15th centuries. The tower standing separate from the church was completed in 1364. The fire of 1433 claimed the St.Olaf's Church besides other buildings. It was consecrated for service again in a few years later , as well as decided to be reconstructed larger. The new church, whose construction required the demolition of the old nave and chapels, was completed as a three-nave basilica. The height of the central nave was 31 metres , the height of the stone tower 57 metres, while the spire , completed in 1450 , reached the height of 159 metres. The St. Olaf's Church was the tallest building of the world at that time.
The present late Gothic St. Mary's Chapel was built at the beginning of the 16th century immediately before the Reformation, which also broke off its completion. The cenotaph of the warden of the church and a supporter of the chapel building, Hans Pawels, is built in the chapel wall , bearing the inscription: ''What I have given away , remains with me; what I have owned has been lost for me; no one can consider himself too high for the human life passes like smoke .''
The Lutheran reformation in Tallinn started from St. Olaf's Church. The new religious movement seized the masses and drove them against the Religious fervour turned into a devastating force, which in turn ended up as iconoclastic movement. Thus the crowd destroyed the artistically valuable interior of the St. Olaf's Church in 1524. The church suffered no external damage. This church has a bitter record regarding fire. Lighting has set the spire on fire eight timesa nad fires have consumed everything but the walls on three occasions.
The unusually tall building was struck by lighting in 1625. The fire destroyed the tower and the spire, the bells and the entire interior. Although only the walls remained standing, the church was re-opened in three years.
The church burned completely down again in 1820 within only four hourd. Only the St. Olaf's library was miraculously spared. The restoration took 20 years this time and received personal support of the Russian Emperors Alexander I and later Nicholas I. The presend altar by F.L. Von Maydell and J.G.Exner (1835) ad the altar painting by W. Von Kügelgen (1834) both date back to the period after that fire.
The present height of the church spire, after the reconstruction, which followed the numerous fires, is seemingly insignificant 123 metres, compared to the previous figures , yet even so it is the second tallest building in Tallinn after the TV tower. It is noteworthy that the ball at the base of the cross at the top of the spire is 114 centimetres in diameter.
The church building was turned over in 1950 to the united Tallinn St. Olaf's Congregation of Evangelical Christians and Baptists.
P o r g a s s a a r, Kristina; A l j a s, Eva-Grete; K u u s k e m a a, Jüri. Tallinn: Medieval capital. Tallinn: PhotoTour
T ä h e p õ l d, Kadri. 2005. Giidi käsiraamat: Vanalinn. Tallinn: Ecce Revalia
The legend of St. Olaf's Church
In ancient times Tallinn was said to have been quite small, and it would just now grow bigger. The town could not boast of any trade, and farther away it was completely unknown. It even did not have its own church. The townspeople were eager to make their own famous, but they did not know how to do it. They tried in several ways, but always failed. Finally a man had a good idea : he ordered that a church should be built that existed nowhere else . The others liked the idea as this way they could make double profit from the building.
After great trouble and searching the townspeople found a clever master called Olev, who agreed to take up church-building for a huge salary, and he promised to build so tall a tower that nobody in the whole world had seen before. He started work immediately.
The construction work progressed extremely fast and was soon nearly finished . The church was big and beautiful, so that everybody who saw it praised it. The tall steeple of the church aroused special admiration. It was already completed but for the cross at the top. Olev did not want anyone else to do his job; he wanted to take the cross up to the spire himself so that he could crown his work and all the praises and gratitude would befall only him. He was promised to be paid out his salary after he had put the cross on top of the spire.
When Olev went to do his final job on the church, his wife joyously cried out at home, '' Today Olev will come home with a thousand barrels of gold!''
Olev succeeded in fastening the cross, but as soon as he had done it, he slipped and fell down the spire. Whe he hit the ground , a frog and a snake jumped out of his mouth. Olev was buried right on the same spot where he had fallen. On his grave they put a stone depicting Olev, the frog and the snake. And to commemorate the clever master, the church became to be called Olev's (St. Olaf's) or Oleviste Church.
The more the people rejoiced at the beautiful church, the more the Old Nick got distressed. For a long time he tried to work out how to destroy the church. It would not have been hard for him if only he had dared to approach the church. Finally he thought to have found a good way for doing it from afar. Being in Pärnu, he took a mighty sling , found a solid rock with which he thought he could easily smash the steeple of Oleviste Church, put the rock in the sling and pointed it at the church tower. But while he was spinning the sling, it snapped as the rock was too heavy . And even then the rock flew half the distance before it fell into the field of Ruila Manor by the side of Pärnu-Tallinn road . This is where the sling rock can be seen even today.
St. Olaf's Church
R e i d l a, Jana . 2006. Tallinn in legends . Tallinn: PhotoTour
The Holy Ghost Church
The Holy Ghost Church is situated in a strategic location of downtown Tallinn, in the immediate vicinity of the historic seat of the town government – the Town Hall – at the main square of the medieval town, the Town Hall Square. The order of the Holy Ghost, founded by Pope Innocentius III (1198-1216) and headed by Rome, concentrated in the Catholic World on the establishment of hospitals and poorhouses, known as the Holy Ghost hospices. There were already 180 such establishments in France as early as at the end of the 13th century. One hundred year later, Germany could boast with 130 hospices and their total number was approximately 900.
The Tallinn Holy Ghost Church was built as a hospice church beside the Holy Ghost hospice. The hospice operated successfully for centuries, but its activity began to fade after the Lutheran reformation in the 16th century, partly also due to the construction of the new hospice in the vicinity, and was completely closed down in 1620.
The first written records considerind the Holy Ghost Church date back to 1316 and mention a clergyman of the church in connection with a monetary donation. Records from the middle of the century already concern donations for the construction of a church or a chapel. The present church is considered a 14-century building; besides, it ise the only one of the old churches of Tallinn to have retained its main shape through the ages . The shape of the church is defined by a two-nave main building and a one-nave choir space . The two-nave layout is explained with the fact that it combined the functions of a town government church on the one hand and those of a hospice church on the other. Accordingly, the services were attended by the wealthiest burgers and the poor ; this provided a way of segregation. An eight-sided tower is located at the western wall of the building, which was fitted with a Baroque spire and a weather vane bearing the date 1688 after the fire of 1684. The earliest records regarding the tower date back to an old ledger and inform us that the painter Didrik had been paid in 1498 for gilding the top of the spire. The spire was restored to its previous shape after the latest fire in 2002. Unfortunately, the fire claimed the hitherto oldest bell of Estonia, which used to bear the inscriptions: ''The King of Glory, Christ , come in peace , be welcome the blessed. May Lord be with you. In the year of Our Lord 1433.'' and ''I ring the same for the maid and the farm hand, the lady and the master, no one can blame me for that.'' The bell was cast by Merten Seifert.
The year of the casting of the bell, 1433, is one of the saddest in Tallinn's history. This was the year of a major fire, so devastating that even the chronicles of the Russian town of Pskov recorded how the whole Tallinn burnt down.
The oldest of the existing church bells dates back to 1638 bears the inscription: ''The Lord's word shall last forever.''
An attravtive clock, the oldest public timepiece of Tallinn, can be seen in the outside wall of the church; this dates back to the 17th century. The main altar of the church was created by the famous master Bernt Notke in 1483. It is a two- wing cupboard altar richly decorated with carvings and paintings and one of the mos valuable examples of medieval clerical art in Estonia. The church was also fitted with numerous side altars before the reformation.
P o r g a s s a a r, Kristina; A l j a s, Eva-Grete; K u u s k e m a a, Jüri. Tallinn: Medieval capital. Tallinn: PhotoTour
Other noteworthy items are the 17th century pulpit and the carved wooden figures of the triumphal arch together with the crucifix, the decoration of the balustrade of the balcony , the
17th- century epitaphs to Bartholomeus Rottert and Michael Prosa, as well as the church chandeliers. The earliest reports of the Holy Ghost Church organ date back to 1511 . The present organ was made by organ builder August Artur Terkmann in Tallinn in 1929.
Among the older churches in Tallinn, the Holy Ghost Church has been most closely linked to the Estonians , even including claims by some historians that the church had been built on the site of a chapel of an Estonian congregation of the preconquest era of the 13th century. In 2004, a piece of wall dating back to an older period than the 14th-century church was discovered under the existing church wall, which raised unanswered questions and provided further material for study .
The pastors of the church have been remarkable individuals form the Estonian national viewpoint and this must have been the reason why the Estonians preferred the Holy Ghost congregation to the others since early times. The authors of the earliest preserved Estonian- language printed book (only 11 pages have been found so far, used as filling in the covers of another book) Simon Wanradt and Johann Kõll worked here . They compiled an Estonian-language catechism due to the reformation and the book was printed in 1535.
Estonian-language services were held in the church until the middle of the 19th century, but with the completion of the St.John's (1867) and St.Charles' (1870) churches, the congregation left for the new ones and the Holy Ghost Church stayed empty for nearly a decade. The present congregation was established in 1877 .
The Holy Ghost Church
P o r g a s s a a r, Kristina; A l j a s, Eva-Grete; K u u s k e m a a, Jüri. Tallinn: Medieval capital. Tallinn: PhotoTour
T ä h e p õ l d, Kadri. 2005. Giidi käsiraamat: Vanalinn. Tallinn: Ecce Revalia
St. Nicholas' Church
The St.Nicholas' Church is one of the most important and oldest churches of Tallinn. It was probably established by German merchants, who settled in Tallinn from Gotland and the invitation of the Order of the Brethren of the Sword in the 1240s. Not much information is available about the population of Tallinn in that period. Toompea was the seat of vassals of the King of Denmark, while the port area – between the present St.Olaf's Church and the Russian church destroyed in the fire of 1433 – was probably settled by Scandinavian and Russian merchants, respectively. The Town Hall Square, which later became the heart of the medieval city, and the adjacent territory of the Holy Ghost Church may have been occupied by Estonian residents. This has been the explanation of the choice of the site for St.Nicholas Church. In any case , the German merchants became decisive in the further development of the city and the burgers of Tallinn.
The first records of the church date back to 1315 and concern and adjacent real estate plot. The oldest grave marker in the church dates back to 1309. The church was probably originally built of stone, since it performed a defensive function besides that of a place of worship – the Tallinn town wall had not yet been built. This explains the thickness of the church walls, which reaches three metres in some places. The building, initially planned as one-nave, was completed at the end of the 13th century at the latest as a three-nave basilica. The hewn portals of the church also belong to the same early period.
The church was relieved of the defensive functions by the middle of the 14th century as the town wall was completed and the smaller annexes like the St. Barbara , St.Matthew and St.George chapels, was started. The 15th century was as time of major reconstruction with the building of the tower becoming especially interesting. The Tallinn of that period consisted of two relatively independent components : Toompea, the centre of the ecclesiastical and state power, and the downtown, which was ruled by the Tallinn town council and which observed the Lübeck town bylaws. The relations were so hostile that the downtown was forced to build defensive towers on the streets connecting Toompea and downtown – the Long and Short Legs – and close the gates at night , so as to protect the burgers from attacks of the nobility residing on Toompea.
The iconoclastic movement accompanying the Lutheran reformation, unlike the St.Olaf's and the Holy Ghost churches, never got past the doors of St.Nicholas. The raging mob, which had come to destroy the holy images and vessels symbolising Catholicism, had to accept defeat: the doors' locks had been poured full of molten lead and no one got in.
The reconstruction, which began at the end of the 17th century with the repair of the tower, gave St.Nicholas Church its present appearance. World War 2 has a devastating effect – the spire and the roof burned down together with most of the interior and even some grave markers in the floor were destroyed. The most valuable part of the church's art treasures were preserved, since they had been evacuated from the building. The church remained in ruins for years and the restoration ended only as recently as in 1984. The church is presently used as a museum -concert hall, a subsidiary of the National Art's Museum.
P o r g a s s a a r, Kristina; A l j a s, Eva-Grete; K u u s k e m a a, Jüri. Tallinn: Medieval capital. Tallinn: PhotoTour
S t. N i c h o l a s' C h u r c h. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Nicholas%27_Church,_Tallinn

Artworks in the church

Most famous of the artworks is a painting Danse Macabre ( Dance of Death) by the Lübeck master Bernt Notke, which depicts the transience of life, the skeletal figures of Death taking along the mighty as well as the feeble ones. Only the initial fragment of the original 30 metres (98.4 ft) wide painting (accomplished at the end of the 15th century) can be seen in the St Nicholas' Church.
Danse Macabre by Bernt Notke
The High Altar of the St Nicholas' Church was made between 1478 –1481 in the workshop of Herman Rode , master from Lübeck. Paintings on the outer flanks of this double-winged altar depict the life of Saint Nicholas, the central part and the unfolded wings expose over thirty wooden sculptures forming the so-called gallery of saints.
The exposition contains also the Altar of St. Mary from 1500; the Altar of the Holy Kin from about 1490 , made at Jan Borman ’s workshop in Brussels ; The Altar of Christ's Passion was made at the beginning of the 16th century by the Brugge master Adrian Isenbrandt at the order of the powerful Brotherhood of the Blackheads Guild.
The High Altar
References:

• P o r g a s s a a r, Kristina; A l j a s, Eva-Grete; K u u s k e m a a, Jüri. Tallinn: Medieval capital. Tallinn: PhotoTour
  
• S t. N i c h o l a s' C h u r c h. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Nicholas%27_Church,_Tallinn
  
• R e i d l a, Jana. 2006. Tallinn in legends. Tallinn: PhotoTour
  
• T ä h e p õ l d, Kadri. 2005. Giidi käsiraamat: Vanalinn. Tallinn: Ecce Revalia
  
• T h e c a t h e d r a l o f S a i n t M a r y t h e V i r g i n i n T a l l i n n . http://www.eelk.ee/~eelk109/english.ht m